{"id":9726,"date":"2019-11-22T21:13:49","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T02:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/?p=9726"},"modified":"2019-12-15T06:08:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T11:08:11","slug":"november-20-tongariro-to-matamata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/?p=9726","title":{"rendered":"November 20 – Tongariro to Matamata"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nov 20 – Arthouse B&B, Matamata
\n37\u00b046\u203219\u2033 S 175\u00b043\u203216\u2033 E<\/p>\n

We left the Chateau Tongariro in much the same weather as when we had arrived a couple of days before – in the pouring rain with the clouds so low that there were no mountains to be seen anywhere.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t believe our luck – we had one full day in the area to see the sights & we were fortunate enough to get the only day with sunshine & mostly clear skies.<\/p>\n

Now we were headed off to the next part of our adventures. We had a 3 hour drive through the mountains & valleys to the town of Matamata, which is just a few minute\u2019s drive from Hobbiton.<\/p>\n

Matamata is a busy town in the midst of a very prosperous agricultural area. The arrival of the movie production people for elements of the Lord of the Rings movies cranked up the activity in the area by several notches.<\/p>\n

We went to the tourist information center which is modeled after a Hobbit house & then strolled through the downtown commercial area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Matamata & Hobbiton are now among the most popular tourist areas in New Zealand, even almost 20 years after the initial release of the movies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We stayed at a very nice B&B just outside of the town. The place was in the middle of farm country with gentle rolling hills & great views in every direction. The owners have 3 alpacas in a small field adjacent to their backyard – Cleo, Madonna and Frida – very curious animals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tomorrow we go to Hobbiton!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nov 20 – Arthouse B&B, Matamata 37\u00b046\u203219\u2033 S 175\u00b043\u203216\u2033 E We left the Chateau Tongariro in much the same weather as when we had arrived a couple of days before – in the pouring rain with the clouds so low that there were no mountains to be seen anywhere. We can\u2019t believe our luck – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-down-under"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ppZJ-2wS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9726"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10130,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9726\/revisions\/10130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}