New Zealand, it’s great advertising for planet Earth.

New Zealand Adventure from aliciabenz on Vimeo.

Our final adventure whilst in the land down under, was to New Zealand. Talk about saving the best for last, it was absolutely breathtaking. It was the only place we’ve been where the pines and the palms grow right beside one another, and the sheep outnumber the citizens 5 to 1. Within the first 30 minutes upon arrival, our hostess, Kirsten, had us collecting organic eggs out of the chicken coop, and feeding the family cows. NZ is literally animal paradise, with countless miles of sprawling green hills and forests, the animals are living better than the average American. If thats not your thing, no worries, the beaches and coastline have the bluest water we’ve ever seen. No kidding, New Zealand’s water knocks the Caribbean out of the ball park when it comes to beauty and clarity.

One of the most positive and pure places anyone can ever visit, we recommend that everyone take a trip here at least once in their lifetime. If we were ever to create an ad campaign for the planet, we would shoot the entire thing in NZ, no questions asked. Makes us humans look like we are doing awesome!

Also, Meesh, being a huge Lord of the Rings fan (haha), dragged along Esh and Kirsten to Hobbiton, the movie set for the Shire, the place where the hobbits live in the books and movies. It turned out to be a great little tour of the inner island indeed! We learned about Peter Jackson and his non-existent budget for filming the trilogy, and how much careful detail went into each and every second of the films. The set was gorgeous, and it definitely felt like we were in Middle Earth. We found out they will also be filming “The Hobbit,” the prequel to the LOTR, at this location as well. They had just begun the process of getting the vegetation in order, which takes about a year to prepare for.

Gotta love that trillion dollar US entertainment industry, they do it RIGHT. The tour guide told us that because Hobbiton is in the middle of nowhere, director Peter Jackson had a massive 10 ton generator shipped in from the states, and brought to the location. It took the New Zealand Army approximately 6 months to engineer and build a road that would be sturdy enough to handle the transport of this massive machine. Also, at any given time there could be 400 people on set, all needing several 3 course meals a day, and without that generator, those meals would have never happened, hence no movie. You can see where our US priorities lie.

Anyways, we also visited beaches, hot springs, and forests. All the pictures can be found in this HD film we put together for all our American friends. Cheers, and Kia Ora from New Zealand.