Hobbiton Movie Set!

We had an early start this morning in order for us to complete the drive to Matamata in time for our Hobbiton Movie Set tour! The roads were interesting (our SatNav likes to take us off the beaten track) and there was a lot of rain which had us worried...Hobbtion is supposed to be a nice and sunny place you see.
After a quick stop at McDonalds to stifle Robs food rage, we arrived just in the nick of time to catch our bus to the set. We couldn't sit together due to how full the tour was, but we were at least on route to the set. We had an introduction to our tour guide and the driver and then they played a video with clips from the movies which, with the soundtrack playing alongside it, had everyone very excited to see all the locations.

We grabbed our brollies on arrival at the set and then followed the guide. The rain came quickly and we were glad to have the brollies, not so glad that we needed to use them though! Thankfully after about 15 minutes the rain passed, the blue skies appeared and the sun shone for the rest of the day.
I don't really need to describe the set itself. It literally looks like it does in the movies. Adorable hobbit houses with tiny doors and real vegetable patches that are tended to throughout the year still. There is so much detail here it is incredible, clothes on washing lines, food cooking outside of houses and even smoking chimneys! There would be chimneys smoking where you couldn't even see the hobbit houses they belonged to, it just looked like grassy hills until you walked along he winding paths and eventually the tiny windows and doors came into view.
Of course the house of Bilbo was by far the most popular alongside the party tree and the green dragon pub. The set of the pub, with the bridge over the lake and the mill was amazing. We had a drink inside the pub, again intricately detailed, and then headed back to the Shires Rest for some lunch where I also bought Rob his early Christmas presents....the location guide books.

After Hobbiton we set off for Hamilton where we enjoyed wandering around the free gardens in the sun. For free gardens I wasn't expecting anything as near as grand as what was there. They had so many different gardens representing different countries, eras and styles.

After the gardens we decided to get some food supplies and after a long debate about dinner, we splashed out on a takeaway curry. We took it to the campsite that we had found for the night and then discovered that instead of the joyous curry that we were expecting, we had instead forked out for a very greasy curry, which despite ordering two different types, tasted exactly the same. It also gave me belly ache and made for an earlier than normal night :(Read more