Wednesday 18 December, 2013

A short ride today, to get us to Matamata so that we could visit the Hobbiton Movie set.

The bicycle ride was through a valley on quiet roads.  We had a bit of a head wind, but it was a lovely ride.  Very similar to the Derbyshire Dales, my Mum would have loved New Zealand.

As soon as we got into Matamata we found the iSite, which was actually a Hobbit house and found a place to stay and reserved for the 11:45 Tour to Hobbiton.  We caught the bus and then were introduced to Hobbiton.  It was absolutely awesome.  All of the tours have to be with an organized group, it costs $75.00 per person regardless if you get the bus from Matamata or if you drive out to the site.  The guide was very good he gave us all the relevant information on the making of the movie and allowed us plenty of time to take photographs and we took lots.  The tree above Bilbo Baggins house is the only fake tree in the ‘shire” and cost over one million dollars to make. It was only in the first movie for about 15 seconds.  The site itself has been reconstructed really well, with lots of attention to detail, including washing on the lines, little ladders leaning against the fruit trees, English flowers and herbs, a great vegetable garden, there was even smoke coming out of the chimney of Bilbo Baggins’ house.  At the end of the tour, we had a beer (included in the tour price) in the Green Dragon pub.

Hobbiton was much better than I thought it was going to be.  I thought it was going to be really small, but it wasn’t, the whole village was reconstructed with over 50 hobbit holes, ranging from just a small door and a window in the hill-side to bigger ones with larger doors, bigger windows, gardens, and tables and tools.  We were allowed to enter a couple of them, but not Bilbo Baggins house.  The Green Dragon pub was really authentic to the movies.  We loved it.  Thanks Jim for treating us to this great afternoon.