Wallaman Falls, Far North Queensland

Now that we're back in Townsville we can continue to explore the area.  We've promised ourselves a day trip to the Wallaman Falls to see the highest, permanent single drop waterfall in Australia.  At Ingham, about an hour north of Townsville through the flowering sugar cane farms, on the Bruce Highway, we turned inland towards the mountains.  After travelling for about 25km through more canefields we started to drive up into the mountains on a steep, narrow, winding road through the we tropical rainforest.  Although cassowaries are common in this area we didn't see any.

About 40 minutes from Ingham we entered the Girringun National Park which is part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Site.  10km into the park we came to the Wallaman Falls parking area.  The falls lookout is very close to the car park and we were able to take plenty of photos of this spectacular natural attraction.

There's a track down into the gorge but we only walked to the gorge lookout, about 300m from the carpark.  The walk up from the gorge would be pretty exhausting for all but the fittest.

Hobbiton - a Trip Into Middle Earth

Anyone familiar with The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit books or movies will recognise the name - Hobbiton.  A couple of hours from Auckland and about an hour from Tokoroa is the movie set of the village made famous by JRR Tolkein in his books.  

We've often included something from The Lord of the Rings in our NZ holidays and this time we planned to spend the day visiting Hobbiton.  We drove to The Shires Rest near Matamata and booked into a tour of the movie set.  Tours leave from here every 30 minutes for the site a few kms away in a sheep paddock.  

When the first 3 movies were made the location sets were all temporary and the locations were all restored to their pre-filming state.  Due to public demand (and interest), when The Hobbit was filmed, the village was built from more permanent materials and a tourist attraction was established.  Many thousands of people visit this site every week.

There are over 40 hobbit houses - although they're only facades - built into the hills.  We wandered along the paths with our tour guide who was able to give us some insights into the filming, for over an hour.  There are functional vegetable gardens and fruit trees which certainly add to the ambience of the area.  We ended up at The Green Dragon Inn for a drink before making our way back to the bus and The Shires Rest.

It was easy to imagine Bilbo Baggins, Frodo and Gandalf wandering through the village and gardens.

New Zealand - Land of the Long White Cloud

Another lovely holiday in New Zealand.  We've been there many times and this visit is to attend a family wedding near Auckland.  On arrival at Auckland Airport we bought a pre-paid SIM card so we'd be able to make phone calls and access the internet.  The phone calls worked out fine but the internet access was painfully slow - too slow to enable any blog updating, web surfing or even to use maps, so I'm writing this a few weeks after the event, back in Townsville.  We collected our pre-booked hire car from Ezi-Rent, the company we usually use, and headed off along the motorway to our accommodation.

We booked into our B&B, Bombay Bed and Breakfast, about 35 km south of Auckland.  The Bombay Hills are lush and green and the views are magnificent.  We really notice how green everything is when we're in NZ.  So different to the grey-greens, browns and reds of Australia.  Our few days here were spent mostly with family - pre and post  the wedding which was held at the picturesque Simunovich Olive Estate.

Nearby Pokekohe was hosting the annual V8 car races and the local shops were right into the spirit with racing themed window displays.

After the wedding we drove to Coromandel, on the Coromandel Peninsula across the Hauraki Bay east from Auckland, for more family time.  Once onto the peninsula, the road is very narrow and winding and hugs the coast.  Beautiful scenery along the way.  The 55km from Thames, at the base of the peninsula, to Coromandel Town takes about an hour.

Once settled in we were able to enjoy some fishing as well as the scenery.

One of the tourist attractions is the Driving Creek Railway, a narrow gauge railway built on 60 acres on the steep side of a mountain.  This privately owned attraction was built in the 1970s to transport clay for the pottery on the property.  

We travelled through the rainforest, along zig-zags and switchbacks, over bridges and through tunnels up the mountain.  After some time looking at the view and taking photos, it was back onto the train for the trip down.  The pottery artworks alongside the track were reminders of the reason this railway was built.

A day trip to the eastern side of the peninsula to Whitianga was across the mountains, through rainforest along the "309 Road".  We weren't able to drive up to Castle Rock due to road closures, but we saw this imposing volcanic plug from many vantage points.  On our way back we stopped at one of the many scenic lookouts to take some photos.

Saturday morning we decided to make the 1 hour drive to historic Thames to visit the markets.  We had freshly prepared mussel fritters for lunch.  These are a NZ institution and are delicious, packed with NZ green-lip mussels.  We were able to indulge in mussels quite often.







After Coromandel we travelled a few hours south to Tokoroa, in the middle of the North Island to rejoin family there.  This time we managed to visit nearby Rotorua.  We haven't been to Rotorua for many years and it has certainly changed.  We spent a couple of hours in the museum which is located in the old bath house.  Once again we were impressed by the way NZ museums are curated and managed.  They really do get it right.

The walk back to the car through the Government Gardens was very relaxing.

Our other excursion was a day trip to Hobbiton, I'll do a separate post for this one.