April 12 New Zealand

 We were all very excited for today. Today is Hobbiton Day!

The drive there was absolutely beautiful. Lots of rolling hills and cows and sheep.

We all took zillions of pictures so I'll probably just add a link to them at the end.

The movie set is on a working sheep farm and so the place where you park is not right by the set. At the parking area they have a small gift shop and cafe. Lots of tables and chairs around so we could relax until it was our turn. We enjoyed some pastries and the beautiful weather.

They take each group to the shire on a cute bus and they showed some movie clips and other interesting movie/behind the scenes info during the ride. I loved it.

They park in this nondescript gravel parking lot and you really can't tell that there is anything special nearby. Then they take you to a little gate and say "Welcome to the Shire" and you enter a magical world.

There are, if I remember right, 44 Hobbit homes built into this hill. It really feels like a little town. Every home has windows with stuff showing, a yard, garden and often clothes on the line.  Perhaps the hobbit that lives there has a trade, which case there are props showing that trade (honey for sale for example).

Since this is the actual set for the movie, you can recognize where various scenes took place. Also some of the hobbit home are smaller and some are larger, so that when a person filmed by them they might look larger or smaller by comparison.

Our guide stopped at various points and told stories of the making of the movie and also tidbits about the Hobbits that live in certain houses (all coming from the original books of course).

The details were amazing. Many of the chimneys had smoke coming from them and it had a lovely smell. Sadly I can't remember the kind of wood they used but it was all part of the plan to make Hobbiton real.

Bilbo's home is the largest home in Hobbiton and sits on the top of the hill. It has many windows (showing his wealth) and a large tree that sits atop the house. This tree is the only imitation (our guide said they never use the F-word...fake...in Hobbiton. LOL) tree on the property. I don't think I would have noticed that it wasn't real. It has over 500,000 individual leaves wired onto it!

Me in front of Bilbo's home

After winding our way up through Hobbiton to Bilbo's house. We then walked back down to the field where the birthday party scene takes place. We had a few minutes to play with the various games and enjoy the pretty field.

We attempted the May Pole and we clearly did not know what we were doing. 

The party tree where Bilbo stood to give his speech.

They told us that this giant tree is struggling and though they are doing all they can to save it, it may die. Our guide conjectured that they might have to build another imitation tree here since it's so iconic. I can't imagine the cost of such an endeavor!

As we wound through town we passed many cute hobbit homes.

I loved all the signs and also the laundry on the line (which is miniature of course!)

They have built two full hobbit homes that are made to go inside. The rest of the town is a set for a movie so all of the indoor shots were done in a studio. They just have a small area behind the door for props and for actors to be able to go in and out of the house but there's nothing actually inside really. 

But these two home were build for the tour and they are fully furnished and build at 83% of human size. So everything inside had to be custom made. Seriously we all loved it so much walking around inside. I could live there! They had working fireplaces, running water and we could touch and move anything. We laid on the beds and sat in the bathtub!

The last part of the tour is to walk over the bridge over to the Green Dragon Pub for a free drink.

The Green Dragon is officially the busiest pub in New Zealand. They serve 40 drinks every 10 minutes!

There were 3 drink choices: an ale made specifically for the Green Dragon that you can't get anywhere else, a birch beer (the only non alcoholic option) and I want to say a beer? But I forget the 3rd option. Obviously we went for the non alcoholic option.

I just had a few sips as I usually don't do that well with sugared drinks.

Everyone else drank all of theirs and some of them regretted it!

It made them very full before lunch. 

Our tour included lunch so we met outside the green dragon to be taken into the big party tent for lunch.

Everything is just so darn cute

 It was decorated so cute and there was a big buffet of all kinds of food. You could stay pretty much as long as you wanted and eat as much as you want. 

We finished with a few photos together and some souvenirs purchased.

We all agreed that this outing all by itself was worth the 13 hour flight! 

We all loved it!

After Hobbiton, we headed back home (2 hour drive).

We played cards and had a cheeseboard with crackers for an early dinner.

We watched some more of the Lord Of the Rings (still didn't finish it!) and some of us got hungry so we went out and got McDonalds for a late night snack.

I fell asleep on the floor watching the movie at about 9 pm...so I missed the excitement- when everyone was headed to bed and Dion was picking up trash, he dropped a container of McDonalds BBQ sauce on the white rug.

Oops

I guess they worked on cleaning it that night and we continued to work on it for a few days. It did end up coming out ok and we also realized that it was not the only stain.

Tomorrow we must be up early for the Temple dedication!