To say we have been looking forward to this trip for a long time would be an understatement. We both couldn’t wait to go to Hobbiton and see the Shire. We had decided to book our Hobbiton trip as part of the Middle Earth Trilogy package, which included: Hobbiton, Waitomo and Raikari Caves and Te Pui (cultural experience). We booked these tours so that we were doing one each day for three days. We added up the savings and we would save a large amount by doing them through a package deal rather than individually so were pretty happy.

We left our accommodation in Coromandel early as we had a 2 hour drive to the Matamata area where the Hobbiton set is based. As we approached the area, with its sweeping hills and lush green countryside, we new we were close. You honestly felt like you were in the middle of the Shire before you even made it to the set. We parked up and checked in as a bus would be taking us the final distance into the set. We learnt that Peter Jackson (the director of the LoTR and the Hobbit trilogies) had flown over the area in a Helicopter searching for the perfect sight for Hobbiton and as soon as he saw this sight, he knew that this was it. The land belonged, and still does, to the Alexander family. The land had been used as farm land and as we drove towards the set we enjoyed seeing all of the sheep roaming around on the beautiful hillsides.

The set was built temporarily for the LoTR trilogy, removed after filming finished and then rebuilt permanently for the Hobbit trilogy. It has been accessible to tour since then. We watched a video on the bus as we pulled up to the site and you could tell that everyone on the bus was getting pretty excited.

I won’t go into too much detail about all of the little filming secrets they told us about, or what every single hobbit hole looked like, as I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who will visit in the future. However, I will tell you that there are 43 hobbit holes, 4 more than were built for the LoTR trilogy as Peter Jackson wanted to be able to get more sweeping panoramic shots during the filming of the Hobbit. We got to walk around most of them, which are unfortunately only facades. All of the internal shots were filmed in studios either down in Wellington or elsewhere in the world. Some of the highlights were seeing Bag End, Sam’s house, the Party tree and the Green Dragon pub. I’ll put a selection of photos below for you to see.

The weather was glorious, the air of excitement was all around us and it was a really lovely tour. We ended the tour with a drink in the Green Dragon. We both had tasty cider and couldn’t believe that our 2 hours were over already. The one downside to the tour was that is was VERY busy. When you wanted to get photos back to Hobbiton there were queues of people in the shots and you were constantly getting moved along to keep up with your tour group. As it is designed for Hobbits, the paths are narrow and taking photos was pretty difficult. But, we did have an AMAZING time.

We arrived back at the carpark wanting to go around again, just because 2 hours wasn’t enough time. We ate some sandwiches in Maverick and then moved on towards a town called Cambridge. The wifi situation has been pretty rubbish so far. Never having good enough wifi to upload photos, write blogs or do research, so we went to a local Mcdonalds and had a drink to use their wifi. Their wifi was BAD!! We hardly got anything done. The rest of the day was a work day. Laundry needed doing and food shopping needed buying, but we ended the day by watching the Fellowship of the Ring. I mean, what else would we have watched that night? 🙂