We did things a little bit differently in New Zealand because we went for a long road trip first. When we were driving, we got to listen to The Hobbit. The second part we stayed at a house with a lot of animals pet sitting. We went to a lot of beaches, caves, and forests.

Glowworms are really crazy animals. They have bioluminescence. They hunt by hanging lots of straight strings down that are sticky like spider webs. The other bugs think the glowing is the light to go outside and they get trapped in the strings. Then the glowworm pulls it up and eats the other bug.

We went into a glowworm cave by walking down a big spiral staircase. There were huge doors and a tunnel to get into the cave. They have it like that so the temperature and air stay the same to protect the glowworms. There was a stone called cave bacon because they looked like strips of bacon hanging off the walls. There was one part that had a really low ceiling so they called it the hobbit hallway. There was an area where we got to see people blackwater rafting. I would definitely do that. It looked so fun. We went into two caves. The second one, we got to go on a boat and took it out of the cave. There were thousands and thousands of glowworms. You could see their reflection in the water too. It looked like stars.

We went to a place called Hell’s Gate. It was called that because one of the hot springs there was like 120 degrees Celsius! My favorite one there was probably the medicine lake. It’s called that because of the sulphur in it. It used to be used as medicine. They still take mud from it for the mud baths. We went in one and sulphur pools too. The mud bath was not dirty mud. It was actually quite clean. Once we got out of it and rinsed the mud off of us, our skin felt like baby skin. The whole place kind of smelled like rotten eggs because of all the sulphur. Our swimsuits smelled like farts even after we washed them.

After listening to the whole Hobbit book, we watched the first two movies, and then went to where some of them were filmed. It was called Hobbiton. The houses were in the ground. They were called hobbit holes. They aren’t dirty holes with worms and stuff, they are nice and clean. I’m about the size of a hobbit so I fit very well. We went into a house that was set up for a hobbit family with kids. It was very very very neat. The beds were very cute. The toilet was weird because it was wooden and built in the wall. My favorite part was having ginger beer at the Green Dragon Inn. It was better than normal ginger beer. I liked it.

The speedboat we went on was really bumpy and fast. I was laughing like a maniac almost the whole time. It was really fun. We got to go in some caves in the boat. My favorite one was when the boat was blasting music and it was very echoey. Fish were all around us too. I liked the music he was playing. I knew most of the songs because it was like Imagine Dragons, Adele, and Lady Gaga. I didn’t want to get in the water to snorkel because it was way too cold for me. Micah and Terrell both did though.

I would definitely go back to New Zealand. I want to go black water rafting and see the lonely mountain from The Hobbit. The people were very friendly.