A Day Trip To Middle-earth

Sunday

Mark has a couple of long work weeks coming up, so we wanted to get out of town. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, so we headed for the little town of Matamata on the other side of the Kaimai Range. Less than an hour away from Mt Maunganui, on the way to Hamilton, the Alexander family farm just west of Matamata is home to the only LOTR filming site with any intact set pieces. We'll surely go back when Mark's parents and sister come to visit in November, but Ro was itching to see it when we told him it was nearby, and we weren't sure how much longer the site might be open to the public. Landscaping work for the upcoming The Hobbit has already begun! Ro took a catnap on the way, and woke up when we turned off the highway into the rural, rolling farmland of the Waikato region. On our journeys, he'll usually ask "Are we there yet?", but today it was "Where are the Hobbit holes?"

Talking with Russell, one of the Alexander brothers

The Hobbit holes aren't visible from the road, obviously, since that would have defeated the purpose of putting the site in a rural area away from roads, power lines, houses, and other 2oth century clutter. Our first stop was The Shire's Rest, a cafe and gift shop that serves as the gathering point for the tours. They have a tour bus ("Gandalf") and shuttle vans ("Frodo" and "Mary" - as in "had a little lamb") which we've seen before, picking up cruise ship passengers in front of The Anchorage, or bringing tourists in from Rotorua. Sherry was jonesing for some coffee, since her usual cafe on The Mount is closed on Sundays, so a cappuccino from The Shire's Rest hit the spot. Meanwhile, Ro horned in on one of the workers feeding the sheep along the fence line, and she seemed more than happy to let him take over as he held the Tupperware-style container with both hands as the hungry sheep dove their faces into it.

Ro relaxing in The Shire's Rest

These pregnant ewes spot an easy mark

Sherry happy that she finally found some coffee

Our tour group consisted of just us and a grad student from Chicago studying in Auckland, so we had plenty of time to leisurely explore Hobbiton with our friendly tour guide. First, a bit of the lore we picked up about the site. It seems that a New Line Cinema location scout showed up on the Alexanders' doorstep one evening and asked them if they were interested in having a movie shot there. He was basically told that they were too busy watching a rugby game that night to be bothered, but he could feel free to explore the farm to see if it was suitable, just be sure to close the gates behind him so the sheep didn't escape their paddocks. After signing secrecy agreements with the neighbors, a no-fly zone was instituted for 5km surrounding the farm, and the NZ Army began construction of a heavy-duty gravel road that could handle the semi-trucks and construction equipment necessary to make a picturesque east-facing hillside on the farm into Hobbiton.

http://www.hobbitontours.com/

The Hills in Hobbiton

Climbing the fabled Hobbiton Hill to Bag End

It had rained most of the previous week, so we had to carefully watch our step for fear of slipping on mud, or other even less savory things (this is a working sheep farm, after all). There are small wooden gates on either side of Bag End, so the immediate vicinity in front of Bilbo's home was free of sheep droppings, but not so for the rest of Hobbiton. New Line Cinema had dismantled 20 of the 37 Hobbit holes originally built (including Sam's) before rainy weather put a halt to the deconstruction, so to speak. At that point, the Alexanders decided that maybe it was a good idea to leave the other 17 up and get into the tourist trade. Of course, all that's left is the wooden frames, but it's still a unique and magical place to visit if you're a Tolkien fan.

Ro on the very same steps Gandalf walked up to visit Bilbo

The Hills at home in Bag End, Underhill, Hobbiton, Westfarthing, The Shire

Ro really wanted to see a Hobbit, so we made him one

Sherry from inside Bilbo's home

Bag End is the only Hobbit hole you can actually go inside. The interior you see in the movie was shot in the studio

One of the key features of the Alexander family farm for Peter Jackson was its lake, with an impressive tree perfectly positioned next to it. This became the Party Tree, the one Bilbo makes his goodbye speech in front of, and the lake was the very same one the dragon firework exploded over. Across the lake were the sites for the Green Dragon Inn and the mill. To film Bilbo's birthday, the tents and tables were set up on the Party Field between the Party Tree and Hobbiton Hill. And that was real beer they were drinking, too! Specially brewed just for the film, it's only 1% alcohol, so while the actors were able to manage a slight buzz, they didn't get completely sloshed after numerous takes and PJ was able to get the shots he needed. Although the tree by the lake was in prime position, they also needed a tree on top of Bag End, so they cut a suitable oak tree from Matamata into pieces and bolted it back together on top of The Hill, complete with intricate fake leaves imported from Taiwan. Speaking of trees, the small plum trees (to be faithful to the book) seen in The Shire in the film are actually apple trees...with all the apples picked off and fake plums tied on!

Sherry outside Bag End with the Party Tree and Party Field in background

The remnants of the dismantled oak tree on top of The Hill. Note the tour guide giving Sherry bunny ears

Ro overlooking Hobbiton

This one hole was left to decay naturally instead of being kept up

Ro & Sherry dancing like Hobbits on the Party Field

Party like it's 3001!

Strolling across the Party Field

Showing off the polystyrene stone that covered the bridge

"You're about the right size for a Hobbit. Wanna be in a movie?"

Mark & Sherry under the Party Tree

All of the landscaping was removed by New Line after filming wrapped on LOTR in order to put the farm back the way it was. Consequently, they're having to redo it all for The Hobbit (allegedly going to be shot as two movies). Pieces of sod were just recently removed to make room for the new hedgerows. Sites for new Hobbit holes are currently just plywood sticking out of the hillside with orange spray paint to delineate their final shape. Forgive the following pics, as they'll likely just be of interest to hardcore Ring-ers.

Newly planted hedgerows at the base of The Hill

Ro spots a worm where some sod was torn up

A hedge awaits a home near Sam's house, looking towards the Party Tree and lake

Sheep graze around Hobbit holes awaiting construction just northeast of The Hill

A probable cart path east of The Hill

Well northeast of The Hill, this location was where Frodo met Gandalf at the beginning of The Fellowship; some of the scene was shot on Mt Victoria in Wellington

See link to the Google map of Hobbiton:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=matamata+map&ie=UTF8&split=0&ei=wL92SvmaFJaQmAfHrqnBBg&ll=-37.858515,175.680474&spn=0.003532,0.006684&t=h&z=17

As we were leaving Hobbiton, we realized just how lucky we were to have such a small tour group, as the "Gandalf" bus showed up with 16 visitors. Ro did pretty well on the tour, probably because he got a lot of attention from the tour guide and the exchange student who thought he was hilarious (or at least humored him), and he pretty much had his run of the place and didn't have to wait his turn or stay out of anybody's pictures.

Ro asked "What happened to these sheep?"...and then petted one

Our guide made sure to give Ro a double helping of hand sanitizer

The Hobbiton tour includes a "sheep farm experience" at the end, not unlike what happens at the Agrodome in Rotorua, but on a much more intimate scale. There is a "Wool Shed" right next to The Shire's Rest, where Russell Alexander gave us a sheep-shearing demonstration. One tidbit we'll remember: you can always tell a shearer by their hands. The right one is rough from holding a hot, vibrating shear all day, while the left one is soft as a baby's butt from all the lanolin in the wool. Afterwards, Ro came up to pet the newly shorn sheep, then we got a chance to bottle-feed a couple of lambs. We were a few weeks early to see any new spring lambs, so these lambs were pretty good-sized, and attacked the bottle Ro was holding pretty vigorously, much to his delight! Ro wanted to go into the sheep pen behind the stage...and Russell let him. Then he promptly latched the gate behind Ro, trapping him inside with a half-dozen restless sheep...lol. Ahhh...Kiwi humor, gotta love it. Strangely enough, Ro didn't seem to mind.

Russell showing us how to shear a sheep

"Come on up and pet him!"

Not sure who's having the better time: Ro or the lamb!

In the spirit of the occasion, Sherry had brought a farmer's lunch for us to picnic with after the tour. We got a couple of coffees from the cafe (cappuccino for Sherry and a flat white for Mark), and enjoyed the view of the sheep grazing on the tranquil farm as we ate. Ro loved the Hobbit-themed toilets, complete with round door handles in the center of the stall doors.

Lunch al fresco in front of The Shire's Rest


Ro climbing on a relief sculpture which looks to be Gandalf in Minas Tirith. The other side features Frodo & Sam leaving a Hobbit hole

Fortunately, the TP wasn't Hobbit-sized

"In a hole in the ground, there crapped a Hobbit"...just kidding

The aforementioned LOTR beer is, of course, available in the gift shop

After getting home, we did what any proper Hobbits would do at 4:00 in the afternoon...have a cuppa. We finished off the last of our Tim Tam biscuits...they lasted less than 24 hours. Sherry had gotten turned on to them while visiting with Carla and Robyn at the salon. The biscuit is basically two rectangular chocolate cookie wafers sandwiched around some caramel and coated with milk chocolate. You nibble off two opposite corners of the biscuit just enough to expose the wafers, then dip one end in your tea (or coffee, or Milo) and suck the liquid through the biscuit. The hot liquid melts the biscuit just about the same time the tea touches your lips, then you pull the thing out and eat the melted end which has become a sweet, warm, gooey, delectable, downright sinful treat. The girls used another word for it, which I will not utter here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam_Slam

Mark showing how to properly eat a Tim Tam