Hobbiton

Welcome to Hobbiton!  Hobbiton, in real life, is on a sheep farm outside of Matamata.  We got dropped off in Matamata and the information center looks just like a hobbit pub!  We were looking at several tour options, and getting the intercity bus to Matamata seemed like the cheapist.  Especially because there was another bus to Rotorua later that day.  So we had time for a tour and could still get to where we needed to go.

Matamata information center

 Ashlie booked our tours online and it was a good thing too.  Other backpackers inquired about a tour when we got there and they were informed that the next two were full.  We were on a semi-tight bus schedule, so we had to be in and out of Hobbiton within three hours.  It’s a good thing we booked online.  Also Alexander farm was not too far away. 

matamata

Again we had a lovely bus tour guide.  We’ll call him Bob.  Bob was getting up there, but he was cheery and had a lot to say.  Bob told us a little bit about Matamata.  This is rural service town.  The population is low.  The only way it survives is that the surrounding farming population use this town as their main hub.  Most of the people in the area are Dairy farmers, so you see all the usual farming shops and do dads around town along with a chain grocery store and a few other shops.  All the publicity and tourist traffic did allow the town to open up a couple of other things (souvenir shop, hobbit café…), but it’s still mainly relies on the outlaying farmers.

Bob worked with Peter Jackson’s crew to help film the Lord of the Rings series.  Many people in the Matamata area did.  They had locals from all over putting up tents, driving trucks, taking care of animals.  You name it they did it.  They had a crew of 750 people to set up wherever they went.  That is a lot of gear and vehicles, not to mention food.  

OM Copter

Let’s talk gear.  

One of the number one gadgets that the crew got to play with was a very expensive camera.  A four million dollar camera to be exact.  There were only a few of these in the world, and they come with their very own handlers.  Now this camera is the one you strap to a helicopter to take all the beautiful long shots of the New Zealand country side and Frodo running from orcs.  You know those really awesome shots we saw in the movie?  That was this baby.   *After doing a little research I found the OM-Copter is only about 58,000 dollars, but who know maybe back when Bob was on set it was much more.  You can’t a have a good story without the big fish, right?

That horse is wearing a jacket!

here's another cool thing.  You know those shaggy ponies that the hobbits rode?  Turns out they aren’t a real breed.  Peter Jackson had a special long hair coat made for each horse.  You heard right.  Taylored to each horse, so measurement were taken and these guys got custom shaggy jackets.

Also, not all the hobbits are hobbit shaped. Many actors wore plastic suits with water cooling system built in.  The suit made them appropriately rolly while the water cooling made sure they didn’t get heat exhaustion.

 

Okay, I’m done with gadgets, let’s go on to random facts.  Like everything I just told you wasn’t one of those… But anywho.   

Any country would want to have a multimillion dollar movie series filmed on their land.  It would bring in tons of revenue from fans, giving that country mega visa bucks… or tourist bucks.. or something bucks.  Now Peter Jackson was aware of this and asked the New Zealand government to help him out a bit.  The government didn’t help out, but they did give him something that may have been better.  They gave him the Army to use as his disposal. What?! Peter Jackson had them make a road, make sets, do landscaping and some were even used as extras when filming the orc army.  How cool is that?

The bus trip over only took about 20 minutes and when we got there Bob went on break and Mike took over.  He was a young Kiwi, probably in uni still and kinda looked like a hobbit himself; round rosy cheeks and curly auburn hair.

I took that photo.  I know... I can't believe it either.

 The first thing he told us is that this is not the original Shire you see in the Lord of the Rings movie.  That town was temporary.  But after the filming the Alexanders started making their own permanent Hobbition, one that Peter Jackson would use in the filming of the Hobbit.

Hobbit houses

Hobbiton is not just a few doors in hills but over 40 hobbit holes.  This includes a gardens, laundry lines, trails off to their sheep farms, a town gathering place and even a pub.  The Alexanders went all out. The houses aren't all the same size.  Some are small, or the actual size they would have been if hobbits existed.  And some are large so filming a hobbit wasn't all about perspective, but things were actually hobbit sized and human sized.  Pretty cool right?

 

human sized

You all have known I'm a hobbit for a while right?

 Now these holes are not functional.   Most open up to a supporting wall, so about a foot or two of space.  There is one that opens further.  That’s Bag’s end, Bilbo’s family home.  This one opens far enough for you to see a little bit of vestibule, but even this doesn’t go into the hill very far.  

 

You see bag’s end?  Look at it very closely.  Yeah… notice anything weird about it?  How about how green the tree is above the house?  Yeah, that’s fake.  It would be pretty hard to have a real hundreds of years old tree thriving on top of a building that really only just got installed a few years ago.  I don’t blame them.  I just wish they didn’t tell me.  But it was fall and it was the only tree that was that green in the area, I would have noticed anyway... *sigh*

The Green Dragon

 After our tour we headed over to the pub.  Here we got served a complementary beverage and were encouraged to take photos.  I got a stout and I think Ashlie did as well.

Cheers to new adventures!

 In here we found a beautifully decorated tavern…

 a hobbit dress up area…

Who looks better?

/

 outside beautifulness…

 a giant barrel of beer…

and the bridge that was outside pub…

Hobbiton was a blast.  I recommend everyone go.  They even have a wedding venue.  So if you want to spend an arm and a leg to have a hobbit wedding, you totally can.  And now we were off to Rotorua.