Photos from Hobbiton

On our way to our next B&B in Omokoroa we stopped in at the Hobbiton movie set. I really am a fan of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit so was really stoked for this.
We drove to the little country town of Matamata where part of the movies were shot. The visitor centre was so cute. We purchased our tickets and hopped on the bus which took us on a scenic 20 minute ride up to where the set is.

The i-Site visitor centre where you buy your tickets for the Hobbiton tour.

A bronze statue of Gollum at the visitor centre.

A little video that is shown to elucidate the visitors about the set and movies.  Less than 40% of the visitors have actually seen the movies and way less have read the books!

The beautiful rolling countryside that made Peter Jackson pick this spot for the Shire.

The path into Hobbiton

A Hobbit hole

JL trying, and succeeding, using some stilts at the area where Bilbo Baggins had his eleventy first birthday party.

In the only Hobbit hole you can go in to, kinda.....

A view from the top down towards the Green Dragon Pub.

Hobbit mail boxes

The fake oak tree above Bag End. There are over 300,000 hand painted vinyl leaves wired to the tree.

Bag End

Our lovely and humorous guide Emily who went and got a fallen fake branch and was handing out fake leaves to some kid....and me. 😁

Samwise and Rosie's place

John enjoying the included with price of admission beer in the Green Dragon pub.

It really was a cool place!

Another sheep shot....

I must say I really enjoyed this tour even though we had to do it with lots of other people as we did not realize that 1. It was a stat holiday 2. It had just been Chinese New Year and there were literally loads of Chinese tourists everywhere.
We jumped into our vehicle and headed back east to the coast and the lovely little town of Omokoroa.