Concerning Hobbits

With the kids on school holiday and Jen getting holiday (goodness forbid you use the term "vacation" here) from work, we were excited to finally explore the North Island. Being Lord of the Rings nerds (LOTR for those of you in the Middle Earth Inner Circle) our first destination was naturally the Hobbiton movie set.  So after packing our minivan to the gills (can cars have gills, since Kevin Costner had gills in "Waterworld"?) with clothes, food and camping equipment we set off on our way (with significantly lower car suspension).

The map told us that the distance to Matamata was only 336 km, just a short drive, but we were oh so naive.  This was the day we had our rural traffic jam with the multiple herds of sheep.  So, it took us a little longer than expected. But this only heightened the anticipation...

As we approached the area, we drove through a valley of green hills dotted with farms and (you guessed it) sheep grazing on all sides.  Apparently, the production team for LOTR flew all over NZ in helicopters looking for ideal locations.  And when they found this piece of rolling green hills with a perfect "party tree" and no modern buildings or telephone poles/wires, they were enamored.  Bilbo the hobbit gave one of his renowned speeches from under this tree so it was an important part of the scenery of Hobbiton.

Anyway, the production team approached the landowners and made a proposition to build the movie set. As there was no road reaching the location, Peter Jackson convinced the NZ government to borrow the NZ army (all 10 of them-ha ha) to build a road. They wanted to keep it a secret but apparently the soldiers got a bit bored and maybe drunk and leaked the information to the local townies. After filming "LOTR" they had to dismantle the whole movie set, but when they set about to film "The Hobbit," the land owners would only permit it with the understanding that the movie set would be left standing so that tourists could visit. And visit they do - even though it was a low season, the tours were crowded with people from all over the world.

We must admit to having somewhat low expectations of Hobbiton, thinking it would be quite cheesy and over the top.  But it was really quite amazing. All 39 Hobbit holes have been left standing and they have added 5 extra holes as well since the filming.

The amount of detail that the producers strove to achieve in the filming was unbelievable. One great example was the tree that grew over Bag End (Bilbo's hobbit hole).  For the original LOTR films they found a tree that seemed perfect so they cut it into many small pieces and shipped it to the film location. Unfortunately the tree then died (as trees do when they are cut down) so they had to paint it and add artificial leaves. When filming was complete, they had to dismantle the tree along with the rest of the set.  When they came back to film "The Hobbit" they had to rebuild the tree, but yet it had to be a different tree since the timing was 60 years earlier.  So rather than find a different tree that was perfect, the artists built an artificial tree out of styrofoam and a steel frame. It took 10 months to build.  And then they had to glue 200,000 leaves to it!  All for 5 seconds of filming! Here is the "tree" behind Bag End...

And speaking of Bag End (Bilbo and Frodo's home)...

The setting was so perfect it felt like we had been magically transported to Middle Earth. We kept expecting a real live hobbit to pop out of one of the doors or from behind a tree.  Our tour guide gave an excellent history of the whole movie set and many more examples of what it took to build it.

Then Jen did the inexcusable thing of telling the young, attractive, male tour guide that visiting Hobbiton was a dream come true for Kendra. Kendra was not pleased at this.  But then he later came up to her and asked her if she was indeed a huge fan. “I guess so,” was her reply. “Well, each tour I choose someone who is a big fan to give this to” he said as he presented her with a leaf- an actual, real, live, fake leaf from the Hobbiton set tree. “Thanks” she replied in a very nonchalant manner but when he walked away she literally jumped up and down, chanting “I got a leaf! I got a leaf!” So Jen embarrassed her again by taking a photo with the tour guide.

We ended the tour with a drink at the Green Dragon Inn. This building is more recently built and is a replica of the tavern in Hobbiton.  Our drinks were included in the cost of the tour, though we likely would have paid ten bucks for the South Farthing Ale and LongBottom Porters they poured for us!  They had four drinks on tap - the two beers, an alcoholic cider (Kendra was a little giddy after hers although she might have been high on the leaf still, ha ha) and ginger beer for the kids (wicked good ginger beer here in NZ).  Here we are, smiles all around, 'specially because neither Mom or Dad got up and danced on the tables and sang a song!

All in all, a great first day on our trip! Cheers and as they say in Hobbiton “May the hair on your toes never fall out!”