Middle Earth Epic: Hobbiton, Where Dreams Come True

One Ring to Rule Them All

One Ring to Find Them

One Ring to Bring Them All

And in the Darkness Bind Them

[Cue up Concerning Hobbits (LOTR: FOTR) on repeat]

The Lord of the Rings...the real reason I came to New Zealand.  25+ years ago, the great Peter Jackson set out to make the greatest New Zealand tourism campaign of all time.  I never actually saw the films in theaters.  I want to say it was probably 2004 when I saw them for the first time.  I ended up watching all the bonus content on the DVDs and was drawn to the country of New Zealand...my destiny was set.  The funny thing was while I had read The Fellowship of the Ring, I didn't get through all 3 of the books until a couple of years ago.  And when I finished them, I thought, well, they're fine, but I can watch the movies and be happier.  When I was in high school every December my dad had a Christmas party out in Hays.  It was too far to travel home after the party so they would get a hotel room, and because they felt me and my brother were too young to stay home alone over night those first few years, we went along and stayed at the hotel, played in the pool and watched tv.  The weekend of this Christmas party, always seemed to be the weekend TNT Network was airing its Lord of the Rings Marathon, and I'd always turn it on.  Thus The Lord of the Rings became a Christmas movie.  I wouldn't necessarily call myself obsessed with the films or books, I'm no Stephen Colbert.  I'm not even my Uncle Dave.  I like them for their cinematography and their score, almost as much as the content.  They're just good.  And worth planning a whole trip around.

But before we get to Hobbiton, let's start with my morning.  In the morning I had a cave tubing excursion planned at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.  I unfortunately don't have any pictures because I couldn't bring a camera along, but the caves are filled with a dark night sky of bioluminescent worms.  There are a couple of caves in New Zealand that have them, but this one was known for being the best.  I figured why walking through a cave, when you can tube through it.  It was a blast.  Our group of 12 and 3 guides bundled up in thick wetsuits, wetsuit boots, and then what some might call Wellingtons, and helmets with headlamps on them.  It wasn't just a simple hop in your tube at one end and chill sort of tour.  It was more up, down, rushing water, jump off a small waterfall, look at the pretty glowing lights, get up, jump off a waterfall, crawl over some rocks, float in your tube, walk though waist deep water, float, sort of trip.  I glow is so neat and the only part about doing the float trip though the cave instead of walking is that means I don't have pictures.  Oh well.

Anyways, now onto the highlight of the day!  Hobbiton!

A Gandalf-sized Hobbit Hole

I set out for Hobbiton a bit early, because I didn't want to miss anything due to traffic, plus it gave me time to go through the gift shop.  To get to Hobbiton you have to travel down Buckland Rd, which was named that before Peter Jackson found his Hobbiton on it.  You eventually reach The Shire's Rest, the tour kickoff point.  From there tours go out on buses.  They have a number of tours and tour/meal options.  You can go for Second Breakfast, Lunch, or the Evening Banquet.  I did the latter.

The neat thing about going for the Evening Banquet meant we were the last tour group of the day.  By the time we got there, the last tour groups were finishing up, so we got the place to ourselves, perfect for taking pictures.  

Looking down over Hobbiton from near Bag End

Hobbiton as it is today is different from back when they were filming the original Lord of the Rings. After they finished filming LOTR, they took down Hobbiton.  But when they decided to make The Hobbit films, they needed Hobbiton again, and this time instead of making it out of styrofoam, they made it out of real wood and stone so they would be able to keep it around and make it a real opportunity for the fans to visit.  

The Green Dragon 

The attention to detail is amazing.  There are, I believe, 44 hobbit holes and each one is different.  The idea is that it is a real town, and each hobbit hole is tailored to the job of the hobbits within.  The apothecary hobbit has lots of medicinal plants in its garden.  And the bee keeping honey hobbit has lots of flowering plants bees would love.  There is bread "for sale" out front of the baker's hole.  It is just amazing.

Would you like some honey?

Hobbits live in a hierarchical society, so the higher up the side of the hill you are, the better off you are.  Bilbo & Frodo Baggins live at Bag End up on top of the hill in a massive house (no wonder the Sackville Baggins' want it so badly).  And speaking of Bag End, the tree up on top of it is the only tree on the site and in the film that isn't real.  All the rest are.

Bag End

Some of the holes are small for Gandalf purposes, and others are 90% scale or Hobbit size.  Speaking of Gandalf, there was a guy who brought his Gandalf costume and walked around dressed as Gandalf.  Another woman had a very nice hobbit costume, minus the feet.  It was such fun!  Everyone on the tour had actually seen the films or read the books, which our guide said was rather unusual.  

Home of Samwise Gamgee, or Samwise the Brave

While nearly all the holes are just facades with no insides, they recently finished building two holes with interiors.  They were stunning!  I want to live there!  It was massive inside.  I took video so eventually I'll string all those pieces together to share in one video.  

Inside one of the two hobbit holes that are actually finished.

The gardeners who work at Hobbiton are amazing.  Imagine that being your job!  Our guides say they are constantly working on the flowers and plants to make sure they look nice.  Depending on the time of year you'll find different plants and flowers blooming.  Since it is late spring here right now, the flower were gorgeous and in full bloom.

We finished the tour walking past the Mill and over the arched bridge.  It all just feels so real, it is amazing.

The Mill and arched bridge, complete with a hobbit on the bridge.

After we concluded the tour we ended up down at the Green Dragon.  The one with the catchy tune you hear Merry and Pippin singing at Edoras.  🎵 You can keep your fancy ales/you can drink them by the flagon/but the only brew for the brave and true/comes from the Green Dragon 🎶  At the Green Dragon you can get your complementary drink.  They had a couple of beers, an alcoholic apple cider, a ginger beer, and then also some New Zealand wines and Coke.  We were able to enjoy our drinks as the sun was getting ready to set.

The Green Dragon

Then they called us in for the feast!  It was stunning!  My one disappointment was no one broke into a dwarf tune at the table.  The food was so good and I stuffed myself!  I could barely fit in dessert!  The dinner was served family style with all sorts of food being passed around.  Stew, lamb, pies, and of course po-tay-toes!  While eating dinner, one person at our table said she was looking through some of her photos and they look so fake, even though she knows they're real because she took them!  

After dinner was over we walked back through portions of Hobbiton with our lanterns, over to the Party Tree.  There we had a moment of reflection of sorts about how Tolkien created this world that people all over the world can enjoy, and how it brought us all to New Zealand.  They had us turn off our lanterns for a moment and with a clear night sky, it was so beautiful.  

Hobbiton at dusk

It was such an amazing night and I'm so glad I made it down here.  That in itself would have been enough for me.  But now I'm off to find other LOTR filming sites and enjoy other things as I make my way towards the south of the North Island.

The Party Tree in the Party Field.  Yes it's real