We’re going on an adventure!

Warning!!!! This posting will be a great blog post, but 99.9% will focus in on our trip to HOBBITON! Hobbiton is close to the town of Matamata in the center of New Zealand’s north island. It is where they did filming for both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy. Even the people that have never watched the movies had a great time, so maybe everyone reading this and seeing the numerous pictures, will also enjoy it!

Our exciting Thursday 3/7/2024 started slowly. We checked out of our Auckland hotel and headed out of town and on to Hobbiton. On a bus tour, the tour guide talks about random things about wherever you are visiting and ours talked about trains, flora, history, politics etc. For instance, Zealand means sea land in Dutch. In the late 1700’s, captain James Cook from the Netherlands, came upon New Zealand and named it. In the Netherlands there is Holland and a Zeeland, that is where the name came from.

Here is our driver Dean, tour guide Colin and our coach.

Christine always has her eye out for dachshunds, and we found this bench at our rest stop.

We had elevensies on the way to Hobbiton.

We pulled out the chair next to Christine, and were surprised to see it already occupied!

I will save the history for later and focus on HOBBITON!!!! Did I mention that is where we were visiting today! We luckily had several LOR geeks on the tour and we hit it off especially with one of the women from Boston - Meghan.

We spent the next 2 glorious hours touring Hobbiton, then we bought a few souvenirs and ate a buffet lunch in a party tent behind the Green Dragon Inn.

Meghan and Christine with truly happy smiles! No faking smiles today.

Quick stop in the gift shop - no Christine, that would not be considered a carry on…….

Hobbiton was built on the Alexander family farm. The story goes that the people scouting for locations, knocked on their door and were told they could look around, but close the gates behind them! Very laid back! After the Lord of the Rings filming ended, pretty much everything was removed from Hobbiton (since that is what was negotiated with the New Zealand by the LOR production). When it came time to film the Hobbit trilogy, the Alexander family, realizing that they could use it for tourists, asked that the production company leave behind Hobbiton as is. I was sure glad they did!

From the entrance, you can’t see the Hobbiton set, so we had to take a bus there. It went through the, still working, Alexander farm.

SO EXCITED!

WE ARE HERE!!

This lane that we are walking down, is in the very first scene of Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf is driving his cart into Hobbiton and Frodo is waiting for him. (I’m still smiling)

This looks fake! It is not!

Massive picture taking continues!

Here is the first Hobbit hole we came upon.

Since it is a movie set, the hobbit holes (homes) were just the fronts. The scenes of the inside of the homes were filmed in the studios in Wellington, New Zealand. The inside went in just a few feet, but if you peered into towards the windows you couldn’t tell that, there was incredible detail making each look like homes.

Also, all the plants and flowers and trees (except for one, which I will point out later) were real on set and still are. Everything was so well cared for and made the place look magical. They must have an army of gardeners.

There were a few of these sign boards around, they reminded me of postings on bulletin boards in grocery stores.

We worked our way around all the different 44 hobbit holes. The set covers 4.8 hectares (just under 12 acres). As an interesting note, the holes used by actors playing hobbits were built at a 90% scale and the ones used by Gandalf were at a 60% scale to make him look larger.

In these next 2 pictures, you can really see the size of things.

The only fake tree in all of Hobbiton is the tree above Bag End. Peter Jackson wanted it to be exactly perfect!

We didn’t stop smiling the whole time, especially when we got to the penultimate hobbit hole - Bag End! The 2 pictures above this and 6 below are all either of Bag End, or the view looking out from it. Often when I go places, I am a little disappointed after all the hype. This was not true in the case of Bag End and all of Hobbiton!!!! LOVED IT!

This is the view of the “valley” below Bag End.

Can you spy Bibos party tree in the field below us? Just to the right of the tents!

Bilbos party tree is a Radiata pine tree. It is native to California and Mexico and is the most widely planted pine tree in the world. Its disadvantages are that it doesn’t have great core strength and its large branched bend towards the ground, making them break easily. But those properties make it also a great tree to have a party under!

In the pictures above and below, I am having fun dancing at the maypole on the Bilbo party grounds. (Blue sweatshirt)

Colin, Terry, Diana, me, Christine, Meghan, Debra and Louisa all hanging out in the hobbit hole just below bags end.

Our intrepid tour guides - Colin and Louisa

The yellow door hobbit hole in the next 2 pictures, is Samwise Gamgee’s house. Fun fact, at the end of Return of the King when his little hobbit daughter runs out of the house and hugs Sam- it is his real daughter.

At the very bottom of the valley, there were 2 hobbit holes that just were opened Dec 1, 2023. They are completely finished inside and we were able to go in and experience the indoors .

Taking a bath.

Christine was checking out Bilbos desk!

Me trying to get into the top bunk.

Hmmm, maybe I can fit…….

Christine enjoying the fireside.

Comfy?

Second breakfast.

This is the bridge between the mill and the Green Dragon Inn. We didn’t take many pictures, because this area had a lot of scaffolding. They were restoring the roofs.