Hobbiton film locations and Mount Manganui

As I already told you, we could plan our working hours on ourselves to get some time off. We took one day to go to Matamata to a huge former sheep farm. What did we want there, you will ask. Everyone, who is a big Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit fan, will know: in Matamata is the film location of Hobbiton. We had planned to go there and take a very beautiful walk through the landscape and the town of my favourite movies. But no! Without a guided tour for 70 NZD you cannot even get near there! What a pity, especially as my boyfriend and I had to go alone, because the German couple didn’t have any money left after their car finally broke down for good. That was also the reason why they were already returning to Germany. I wanted to do the tour anyway. I mean, how often do you get the chance to walk through Hobbiton? I only felt bad to leave the other to behind, who had decided to go for a walk nearby. For me the tour was absolutely worth it. We got to know many tricks that were used on set. For example, the sunrise in the ‘Good-morning-scene’ – true fans will know, what I talk about – is actually played backwards in the movies, as in reality the sun actually goes down on that side. The set is the perfect location, because there is, as far as one can see, nothing destroying the slightly hilly landscape: no roads, no electricity cables, not nothing. We got a guided tour through the village and they told us that the village was built for the films and afterwards torn down. First, when they knew they were shooting the Hobbit, they rebuilt it, this time with longer lasting materials and it will stay there for the next 50 years for sure. Sad thing is that everything looks perfect, as if there would really be living people – or Hobbits – but inside the houses is nothing, only one meter space and then the earth of the hills. The rest looks authentic, with clothes drying in the gardens, tools lying around and animals in some gardens. Of course, we took a lot of pictures. The famous tree on Bilbos house is actually the only one that is not real and they imported millions of leaves from China to make it seem real. When shooting the Hobbit, they had to completely redo it, because the tree had to be younger. The Party Tree on the other hand is completely real and was actually the reason for the selection of the locations. Huge and right next to the river it was just perfect. In the end of the two hours tour, we all got a free drink in the ‘Green dragon’, which is the only house in Hobbiton you can enter and which is the real ‘Green Dragon’ from the movies. It only opened this year and you can get there Ginger Beer, Cidre, Hobbiton Beer and whole Hobbit meals, just like a true Hobbit. Just amazing!

After that tour, we met our friends again and went with them to visit two cities: Te Aroha and Paroa and finally relaxed at Waihi beach. The next days, we went there more often to enjoy Flo and Mels last days in New Zealand and go the last time for a swim – for me it was the first time- in the New Zealand waters.

When we left our wwoofing place, everyone was in a parting mood, as Flo and Mel would leave the same day, the French guy a few days later and also the Italian woman and her boy would go to Italy for a few weeks. So, it was only the American couple that stayed to look after the house.

On our way to our next wwoofing host, we went to the Mount Manganui. We climbed up the mountain, being more a hill than a mountain, but as it was the only mountain like thing in that region, ok let’s call it a mountain. The view up there was actually pretty amazing. The mountain was on a small peninsula and the weather was wonderful that day. After descending, we had a walk through the village and the shops. We even got some ice cream to celebrate the good weather. Our first and one of the few that we had during our whole time as it is pretty expensive and not really good. This one with less than 3 NZD per scoop was cheap and actually also very good. We stayed at the beach for some hours, which was the best thing to do on this hot day, and then continued to our next wwoofing place. I’ll tell you soon about that experience.

Photo gallery