Hobbiton, revisited

Yesterday was a disaster. I had booked a Hobbiton set tour booked for 12.15 so I got up early as it would take a couple of hours to drive down, I called the cats in but only one appeared and spent a while looking for the other one, I couldn't find her so I left food and water out and the garage door open in the hope she'd turn up later. Molly was being a pain and wouldn't go into the house because she knew I was leaving, I got her inside and put the alarm on. I thought Kylie had said it wouldn't pick up small pets, but as I was about to leave everything when off, I went in, it was deafening and turned it off and put Molly in the rumpus room who was yapping away like mad, still no sign of the cat but I couldn't hang about any longer.

It took longer than expected to get to Hobbiton, the route I was going to take from Morrinsville was not signed and the route instead led me to the highway and through Matamata which I had planned to avoid, I had 9 minutes to go when I arrived in Matamata which has a big sign saying 'Welcome to Hobbiton' but no signs to actual Hobbiton, the town was busy and all the roads go the wrong way. I eventually found Station Road which goes the back way to Hobbiton, no signs from this direction which was weird. Anyway I found it half an hour too late and it was heaving. With the animal and alarm fiasco and the drive down I hadn't had time for breakfast or lunch, I went into the ticketing office and said I totally missed my 12.15 tour and the lady said its ok I could go on the 1pm tour which was in 15 minutes, yay! I had just enough time to eat some muesli bars and slurp some water.

I visited the set 10 years ago when I first travelled round New Zealand, I got the bus from Tauranga to Matamata with a girl from the hostel called Emily, we only just made the bus and the tour picked us up from Matamata town. It was a minibus with probably about 12 people in it, I don't remember any tour guide or many other groups and we're free to look about on our own, the hobbit holes were just bare plywood holes as all the decorative features had been taken down as per the Lord of the Rings contract. The site was used again for the Hobbit films and it was all reinstated and instead of temporary plywood and polystyrene structures, it was remade with permanent materials. It was just a meadow flowered bank where the mill and Green Dragon pub are now.

This time we had to stay in our groups and be told things whilst we waited and wilted in the hot sun, agh! I wasn't really interested what Gandalf did here or what Sam or Bilbo did there - they ran about being influenced by some ring, they were short and stumpy and with hairy feet and liked round doors, the End. I was more interested in was the behind the scenes stuff, how stuff was made and the extreme tweeness of it all. Everyone also had to take a picture of themselves outside every single hobbit hole, I got to the front of the group and left them behind so I could look at things on my own.
It's extremely well made but a lot of it for the purpose of a film is way over the top - there's a tree on top of the hill that's an oak tree which has been cut down from one place and put on the hill because in the book there is a tree in that spot, of course all the leaves fell off so they wired a million silk leaves onto the tree, it was in the film for a matter of seconds. This tree was also recreated exactly the same but smaller for the Hobbit films because it would have been a younger tree. There's also a further row of hobbit holes behind the main set just in case the camera when up that far.



Amazing fake tree, an evergreen Oak!

The NZ Army also put in the road from the location to the main road for free and did a lot of initial earth moving to make the holes. Peter Jackson can afford to have a million painted leaves on 2 fake trees that appears for a few seconds and a row of hobbit holes no one ever saw but the tax payer had to foot the bill for 1.5km of road?
The best thing about the tour is the Green Dragon pub at which you get a nice cold ale, and you have all of 15 minutes to enjoy it.



The Green Dragon pub

If I ran the tours here there would be this option:
Set walk through with no commentary and then 1.5 hours at the Green Dragon. Boom hi 5. It would be like Speed Castling that Mum and I did in Jersey and that a lot of fun -look at the thing, move on! The Green Dragon is like an English country pub with round doors and fake old wood, - wood soaked in vinegar to dry it out and cause splits, then sand blasted and a circular saw blade is used to make shallow cracks and therefore make it look aged. I saw people eating food there so they maybe there is a pub only option, but I didn't see any mention of it on the site. Odd.



Movie magic aged wood

{Interlude, commotion in the back garden, one of the cats had got into the dog garden and sitting under the hedge, Jake was barking at her but like a true cat she just sat there and hissed, Shilo was running around exited and Molly was orbiting barking probably thinking that was helpful. I had to put the dogs in the kennel and open the gate so the cat could escape.}

The hobbit holes were made at different scales for different characters or view points. I loved all the finishing touches, the vegetable gardens, little ladders pots and trinkets about the place.

The gardeners do a good job keeping it looking nice.

One of the bigger holes, you can see inside it a bit. But it was all just exterior sets.



They even had real vegetables growing

After the tour I headed straight back to Auckland as I was going climbing at 6.30 at a climbing wall with a meetup group, I got back to the house and the cat was waiting outside the garage so that was a relief. I fed everyone and went to the climbing wall and waited half an hour in the spot we were meant to wait. People have to sign in when they arrive to I asked the staff if the people I was meant to meet had signed in, they hadn't arrived so after waiting half an hour I left, it's rude when people run a group and don't bother to let people know if they are going to be late or not come, I logged in on my phone whilst at the wall and left a message to say I had waited and left, someone else had also left a message but both of the organisers never bothered to show up, looks like they set up a group and then never bothered to check it or even follow their own instructions. Waste of peoples' time.
I thought I'll just take the dogs for a walk instead, I went to take Molly out but she kept running away and concluded she is just a silly little dog and doesn't understand what a lead means, so I took Jake out who slobbered all over me so first I went to wash my clothes - I can't put the collar on him when the other dogs are around so I had to call him into the rumpus room to isolate him and put the collar on. I took 3 poo bags this time just in case, Jake's a cool dog to take for a walk, I like to run with him and it makes anyone else who's walking a dog cross the road!

A busy weird day with lots of running around, I rewarded myself with a pizza and a film.