February 5 – Hobbiton, Matamata, New Zealand

We were up before 6:00am this morning in order to make it to our pick up point in time for our 7:00am pick up.  We are off to Hobbiton…the sight for the filming of all Hobbiton scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies.  As we are Lord of the Rings fans this was a big deal for us.  The drive down was about 2 hours.  We were rather worried as we were driving through pea soup fog for a while.  But it burned off just in time for our arrival in Hobbiton.

The film sight was on the Alexander farm, a 1200+ acres sheep and cattle farm.  The original Hobbiton from The Lord of the Rings movies was taken down after the final scenes were shot.  However, when movie The Hobbit was filmed they rebuilt Hobbiton of more permanent materials and the Alexander family, in partnership with Peter Jackson, now run the attraction. 

There are 44 hobbit holes in three sizes…the smallest size for the hobbits, larger scale when used to film dwarfs (to make them look larger) plus some larger ones to make the hobbits looks smaller.  Some had props to show the resident Hobbit's occupation, like cheese maker or baker.

All of them had lovely English Garden's in the front.

Mary looked the perfect size in one of them.  Many of the round doors open but there were only a few feet of unfinished earth-walled interiors.

We got to visit Bag End, home of Bilbo Baggins.   

One of the more interesting facts about Bag End was the very large oak tree above the home, as described in the book. 

They cut down a very large oak tree and transferred it to the site where it was reassembled and 200,000 leaves where hand wired to the tree.  A really funny part was that when Peter Jackson (the director) first saw the tree he said that the leaves were the wrong color.  So it took a large staff over a week to hand paint all of the leaves, front and back.  (Apparently all the leaves had been replaced a couple of years ago.)

We wandered by a large number of other hobbit holes, including the home of Samwise Gamgee (Frodo’s friend).

There were lots of gardens in bloom (they have something like 40 people working the grounds).

We also visited the village green with its maypole…

and the Party Tree.

The tour ended at the Mill Pond…

and the Green Dragon where we got a mug of Ginger Beer (a very good non-alcoholic beverage) and a buffet lunch. 

We shopped a bit in the Shire Shop...

before heading back to the bus for our drive back to town.

We very much enjoyed our pilgrimage to The Shire.

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More Photos of Hobbiton
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We sailed out of Auckland late afternoon.  We decided to sit out on our balcony and enjoy the sights as we sailed on to our next port.