Cat's Adventures in the Wild: New Zealand - Day 3

Friday, July 12

The weather is wet and cool today, but not cold. We woke up and ate Weet-Bix cereal before heading off to our 11:30 tour reservation in Hobbiton.

Sorry -- am a sucker for a good healthy cereal and this was just different enough from American to make it feel like we've got nothing but sugary insanity for USA breakfast cereals. And Oatmeal. We've got oatmeal.

Hobbiton is a little over 2 hours from Auckland, so we set off at about 9am to give ourselves a little cushion time. It was a lovely ride since we were all very excited and I was bouncy about all the rolling hills covered in sheep.

I found out today that Auckland has 54 volcano cones. Yeah, so every hill you see sticking up around here is basically an extinct volcano.

Arrived at Hobbiton in just enough time to get our tickets and go to the "loo."

If you don't know... the "loo" is a special type of Hobbit Hole. Left for #1 flush & Right for #2 flush.

We had our own personal Hobbit tour guide, imported from Oxford, England. Tash - can you remind me what his name is? Ron? Bob? Tim? Samwise? Unfortunately, we were back a bit far in the group to catch much of what he was saying. And so distracted by all the lovely little details incorporated into the Hobbit Holes. Between the distance and the rain, the guided tour sadly did not get our full attention. However, we can review by watching the extra materials on the LOTR Expanded Edition sets.

Get your Hobbiton map and let's go!!

We learned that Peter Jackson chose this location as he was taking a helicopter ride over this part of New Zealand. The Alexander farm had some special features he was looking for, which included the large Party tree and a pond. The Party tree was central to the start of Fellowship of the Ring, which begins with Bilbo's one hundred eleventieth birthday party. The area was decorated just as it was in the movie, though with not quite all the details of party day.

Bag End was ready for the party.

I suppose we all feel like poor Bilbo sometimes, but today he would get no space from us! He is center stage, just like birthday day. The wealth of a Hobbit can be determined by how high their Home is found on the hill and how many windows they have. By that determination, Bilbo is definitely top dog!

Jackson's crew built 39 Hobbit Holes for the Lord of the Rings movies, then an additional five for the Hobbit movies -- just in case those spaces came into camera angles. We did not get to go by all 44 Hobbit Holes, but the path leads by many of them. The occupation of each Hobbit Hole can be determined by what artifacts, decorations, or samples can be found around the home. Here are a few lovely Hobbit Homes for you to figure out.

That last picture is Sam & Rosie's house at the end of Return of the King. He's done some nice gardening, but I think kids may be distracting Sam from his work. 😄

Our last stop on the trip was The Green Dragon. A half-pint and good Hobbit fare is exactly what we needed after a good walk around the Shire in the rain!