New Zealand 2016 - North Island

We landed in Auckland on April 1, 2016.  At the airport we had problems.  First going through customs, Sister Murdock forgot to declare our wood and bone carvings so they went through our luggage and was talking of fining us $400.  We believe that the man could see that Sister Murdock was about to cry worrying that her grand kids' gifts would be taken from us, so he finally just gave us a warning.  We then had problems getting our rental car.  From the time we landed to the time that we finally got our car it was over 3 hours, sitting waiting for a shuttle to take us to the car.  It was cold and rainy - not a good time.  Sister Murdock was wanting to just go home to America!  Tired, stressed and discouraged, we finally got our rental car, a Fiat, with a foreign shifting system.  It was raining, dark and Elder Murdock was having a hard time trying to figure out how to make this car go forward!  But things got better once we reached Spencer on Byron, wonderful room and bed!  Following is some pictures of the sights and things we did on the North Island, hope you enjoy them.

April 2, we tried to go to the temple but found they closed early because of General Conference.  So we returned on April 5th to do a session and had a wonderful time.  But we believe Sister Murdock left her brain back in Tonga as she discovered she left her blood pressure meds and today she left her favorite string of pearls here at the temple.  They did find them and some Senior missionaries are mailing them home to Idaho for her.  And we found someone coming from Tonga to Auckland that will bring her medication to us.

The temple is set in a beautiful country setting up on a hill.

After leaving the temple we headed to Raglan for a drive.  We found this silo and on the side it said "Portland Cement".  We found it quite interesting!

This is some of the beautiful county side on our drive to Raglan.  The hills were rolling green!

It then started to rain and this rainbow appeared.

On April 3, Sunday, after church we headed up to the North part of the North Island.  We came upon this peninsula.

It was a beautiful view!

Elder Murdock is standing on the viewing platform of this peninsula.

The country was so beautiful!  The pictures do not do it justice.

This is one of our favorite views!

We love the fern trees.  In this area they were growing among the other trees.

Another wonderful view on our drive today!

Wish the pictures would tell the true story!

On April 4th we headed to Hobbiton.  The set is located on a 1250 acre ranch, with 11,000 sheep and 12,000 cattle.  It was one of the most beautiful ranches we have seen.

We are starting our tour of Hobbiton.

This is the little garden in the Shire.

One of the houses.

They were all so unique in their own way, each one different.

They looked just like they did in the movie!

This is additional Hobbiton houses.

It was amazing to see the detail that was in each one.

This was the only one that you could go in to have your picture taken, but there was nothing inside like in the movie.  All of those scenes were filmed on a movie set.

This is the oak tree just above Froto's Uncle's house.  It is not a real tree, completely made of steel, Styrofoam that is painted and silk leaves from Japan.  After it was assembled the Director did not like the color of the leaves, so every leaf was removed and painted the color he wanted, then put back onto the tree.  This tree alone cost $1 million!

This is a shot looking down from Froto's house on the Green Dragon.  It was quite the sight!

This is also looking down from Froto's house.

And here is Froto's house!  We wish all our grand kids could be here to see this with us!

We are now heading down to the Green Dragon.

Here we are at the Green Dragon.  It was an amazing building!

Inside we were offered a drink.  Out of the four drinks offered, 3 were alcoholic.  The one we had was Ginger Beer.  It is kind of like Root Beer.

This is one of the fireplaces in the this building.

Here we are saying goodbye to Hobbiton and looking over the 1250 acre ranch.  It was so very beautiful!

We moved on to a Maori show in Rotorua.  We were greeted by the tribe members.  Prior to this greeting we were asked several times not to laugh, talk, and to show respect toward this greeting.  They instructed us that this is a very honored greeting.

Here more tribe members greet us.

After the greeting we were then invited into their Village where we moved from one area to another learning about the traditions and way of  life of the Maori.  In this one we learned how the markings on their faces were etched into their skin and that a lot of the tribesman would die from this.

Here the group of men in our tour group was taught the Haka.  Sister Murdock tried to get Elder Murdock to be a part, but unfortunately he would not!

We were then invited into an area where we watched them uncover our meal for the evening.

Before our dinner, they performed a nice show for us.

This was the dining hall where we had a wonderful meal served to us.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

On April 6th, we met with the Waddoups and Elder and Sister Maughan to help train the Waddoups.  They were a little overwhelmed with all the projects that we were leaving for them to take care.  They are wonderful people and we are sure Tonga will fall in love with them right away!
April 7th we flew to the South Island.

"Sometimes blessings flow to us like water from a spring, but more often, I think, they come to us from a well, when we are willing to do the hard work of letting down a bucket and then pulling it up, heavy and dripping.  Faithfulness brings forth these blessings."     Chieko N. Okazaki