Day 2: In the Shire

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

I’ll be the first to admit, I really liked the Lord of the Rings movies and it was definitely a motivator for me to choose NZ as my next sabbatical trip. But, I haven’t read the books, or even seen the newer Hobbit movies. (Though, I did watch and get really creeped out by the 1970’s animated version). Nonetheless, I was super pumped to see Hobbiton. So pumped that I even tried to book the special tour that gained pre-opening access, and “second-breakfast” in the Green Dragon. Unfortunately, that tour did not meet the minimum and I had to take the more standard option.

I was picked up at my AirBnB by Wayne, a 6’5” gregarious bear of a man. (One of my actually tour guides later in the day assured me he was a proper NZ redneck). We he was running a city tour that day, so I was transferred to the main tour bus with Olly. The drive down to Matamata takes a couple of hours, but it’s definitely not wasted since the scenery is beautiful. On our way down, I took the opportunity to try my first NZ sausage roll at our coffee stop. Basically like a large pig is blanket without the meat-casing. Delicious!

Despite the later start, we were still one of them first groups on the set and it was fairly uncrowded. The Hobbiton guides do a great job of keeping the groups separated, and the feeling of being herded like sheep is kept to a minimum. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves as to how amazing it was...

Daily Observations & Learnings:
~ The rolling, green hills of the North Island aren’t so green in the summer, but it’s still beautiful.
~ Peter Jackson used the NZ army to help build Hobbiton and they served as Orcs in the movie and were asked to tone it down for being too authentic and injuring the actors.
~ There was only one true LOTR nerd on our tour.
~ Hobbit holes were built to different scales depending on if they were filming hobbits or wizards in front of them
~ There is only one hobbit hole you can go into, and it’s empty (apparently, some tourists have cried on the tour after learning this)
~ The little girl who plays Samwise’s daughter was Sean Astin’s actual daughter.

~ Unsolicited Trump-joke Count = 2Read more