KEY POINTS:
As the sun rose over the Kaimai Ranges the only sounds to be heard were a single horse's hooves and laboured breathing as it thundered past us.
We'd risen before dawn to visit one of Matamata's great unsung tourist attractions - its training track.
We sat, totally alone on the terraces of the grandstand watching horse after horse being put through its paces. When the chilly air got too much to bear, we meandered our way through the stables area down to the equine pool to watch horse after horse taking a bath in water that couldn't have been much above freezing point.
At the training track, which is, it's said, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, up to 300 horses a day are put through their paces. Yet so rare are tourists, that owners and trainers are happy to stop and have a chat.
Our pre-dawn expedition wasn't why we picked the Waikato town of Matamata as a holiday destination.
The real reason for the trip was to visit the Opal Hot Springs that are a few kilometres out of town.
The springs have attracted visitors for more than a century.
The pools, which are based within the Opal Hot Springs and Holiday Park complex, but open to the public, comprise a large tepid chlorinated pool, two public mineral baths, naturally heated to just the right temperature for a mid-winter dip, two indoor private spas, and the historic Ramaroa pool, the real drawcard for me.
"Not too flash and not too shabby" - a description taken from another visitor - is how I would sum up the holiday park. As well as camping and caravan sites, it has a range of units and cabins to suit most tastes. On a budget, we chose one of the older "cottages", which were remarkably cheap, but didn't have their own bathrooms. While there, I took a peek at a row of relatively new "standard" and "kitchen" cabins, which were comfortable, albeit smaller than the older structures.
For visitors who want fully self-contained units there are four motel units and two older "tourist flats".
With young children it would be possible, thanks to the thermal pools, to spend an entire long weekend or longer without leaving the complex by car, especially as there's wireless broadband for the adults, and an 18-hole golf course at the Matamata golf club next door.
But I wanted to know more about this part of the world where I'd often stopped for a quick cup of coffee at the Workman's Cafe, but never ventured off the main highway.
It's hard to miss in Matamata just how close the Kaimai Ranges are and one excursion that's possible, even with kids in tow, is the 45-minute hike to the Wairere Falls lookout. The falls drop spectacularly over the Okauia Fault. It's another 45 minutes to the top from the lookout.
Halfway between the hot springs and town is the Firth Tower Museum, the family home of industrial pioneer Josiah Clifton Firth and birthplace of Firth Industries, still to this day the country's largest manufacturer of concrete products. The museum is an Aladdin's Cave of old farming equipment and trappings of early colonial life with many exhibits that kids can touch and play with such as old water pumps and wells.
Other attractions, which I have to say we didn't try, included sky diving from the Matamata airfield, trout fishing and kayaking.
No article about Matamata is complete without mention of Hobbiton, which has put the town on the world tourist map.
For children of a certain age - those old enough to read Lord of the Rings - a trip to the Hobbiton movie set is, I'm told, magical.
My children showed no interest in going and truth be known, I was too tight to part with $120 just to suffer two hours of whining children. I'll go next time without them.
Further information
See familyparks.co.nz
