Friday, 21 October 2016

Hobbiton!

When thinking about exploring New Zealand, checking out the filming locations for Lord of the Rings is high on my list. I was in luck, as in my first day’s wanderings around Rotorua I found a storefront filled with LotR merchandise and offering tours of Hobbiton. A few days later, I was on my way. Because it was 8am on a grey and drizzling morning there were only four of us, all the better for a personal feel to the tour. Rotorua is an hour’s drive from Matamata, where the Alexander sheep farm contains the Hobbiton movie set, but the drive through the countryside was interesting in itself. Right on the edge of town is a park full of active steam vents, beyond that is a dormant volcano with billboards advertising all sorts of adventure sports, and beyond that it fades into endless rolling green hills spotted with sheep and cattle. We crossed over the Kaimai Range, and in the rain the tree-fern lined highway reminded me of the road up to Volcano.

We rolled into Shire’s Rest, the Hobbiton site, along the aptly named Buckland Road (the name actually precedes the filming). Our guide explained the history of the site, with the assistance of a video of Peter Jackson, about how the Alexander farm was spotted by air and fit all the hopes and dreams Jackson had of Hobbiton (minus the oak tree over Bag End); how they built twenty-odd hobbit holes for the LotR set; how they were delayed by a storm halfway through dismantling them upon completion; how even the remains of the set became a popular tourist destination; and how they rebuilt the set in full and permanently, adding a dozen more holes, for the filming of The Hobbit to make it the attraction it is today. We were led into Hobbiton through the same cut in the bank where Frodo jumps into Gandalf’s cart (and learned about forced perspective). The gardens in Hobbiton are planted with real vegetables, and the gardeners are allowed to take home the produce they harvest. Smoke curls out of many chimneys, from small woodchip stoves that smolder all day. Our guide explained to us that the hobbit holes were constructed to everything from 60% to 100% scale depending on whether they were meant to exaggerate the height of Gandalf walking by, or to make the Hobbits seem short. I got a picture in the doorway of the only hobbit hole they let us poke around inside of, but I made the 90% look more like a 60%. Most of the holes only appeared for a few seconds in the films, but each had little details to set it apart, from the laundry on lines to children’s toys in the yards. There even are holes built in the next little valley over that never show up in the movies, built to maintain the illusion if the camera panned up too far in a sweeping shot. That valley had tree-ferns and what appeared to be a Pandanus in it, vegetation I don’t remember seeing in the movies (I’ll have to watch them again to check).

Bag End is the crown jewel of Hobbiton, built at 100% scale and with a complete foyer to allow that shot of looking out through the round green door at the ‘sunset.’ The sunset was actually a sunrise, as Bag End faces East, the actors actually woke up really early and acted everything in reverse before the film was flipped to make the sun appear to sink. The iconic tree above Bag End was one of the few things not already perfect on site. Peter Jackson had an oak tree brought in and planted there for LotR. It was chopped down when filming was complete, and they were unable to find an identical tree for The Hobbit (supposedly fans would complain at the inaccuracy), so they built a replica from steel and foam, with thousands of hand-painted silk leaves, aged back 50 years to fit the timeline. Our guide said we could keep any fallen leaves as a souvenir, but I didn’t see one. The tour ended at the Green Dragon Inn with a complimentary hobbit-brewed beverage (I had the surprisingly good Frogmorton Ginger Beer and an Oatbarton Brew traditional English ale) and a hearty fire to warm up after the chilly English Shire weather.


Hobbiton was great, whimsical, and definitely worth a visit. I hope to see several more filming locations before I leave, albeit the geographical landscapes.





90% life size you say?

Sam Gamgee's house

1 comment:

  1. "They built a replica with steel and foam, with thousands of hand-painted silk leaves, aged back 50 years..." Now that project would be the delight of someone modeling tree growth or leaf area index with a side interest in fantasy.

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