Emily and Joe's Blog: NZ Day 3: Hobbiton

Day 3 began with a short drive from Rotorua to Matamata where we would then embark on the Lord of the Rings Hobbiton Tour. Matamata, or rather the Alexander farm, was discovered by Peter Jackson while on an aerial search for suitable film sites for his LOR movies. The rolling countryside resembled Middle Earth perfectly and the land was untouched by 20th century clutter like roads and power lines. The rest is history.

I (Joe) was very much looking forward to this part of our trip. I have to admit that although it lived up to its hype the weather, namely the rain, put a damper on things. We were as prepared as we could be with rain coats and the provided umbrellas. However, carrying/entertaining a one and half year old while holding an umbrella and carrying a diaper bag all the while on a walking tour trying to listen in and take photos was needless to say difficult and quite frustrating. Emily was also 5 months pregnant at the time. The silver lining was that this really was the only bad weather we had to endure on our trip and it could have been worse had we not been able to go on the tour at all.

Aside from the aforementioned cumber the tour really was fantastic. The amount of undertaking that went on to develop the set is very evident. I won't go into all of it for fear to bore you but apparently the New Zealand Army was contracted for a lot of the heavy duty work and it took 9 months to complete And amazingly most all of the set was torn down after the initial filming. No one had the foresight that it might be a tourist attraction! Only recently was everything rebuilt when The Hobbit trilogy was announced and it is all now carefully maintained. It really is like you are in the movie going on the tour, well, because frankly you are literally walking through the set where they filmed it. I would go back again and recommend to anyone who loved the books and or movies.

Oh, and of course…pictures!