Hobbiton, Tauranga
That's right. Hobbiton, babe!
me likes this picture! Good enough to become a postcard
J booked our car with Ace Rental and they picked us up from the hostel. There's a few places the Hobbiton tour departs from like Matamata (the town where hobbiton is located in) and Shires Rest where the tour directly starts! We tried to key in the address for Shires Rest on the gps but it didn't show up. And so we went along with J's idea to just key in Matamata first and ask around when we get there.
To be honest, I was super skeptical at first. I had no idea no big/small Matamata is. And I don't want to end up at the wrong side of the town and waste 20mins.
Butttt my worry was totally unfounded. This information center came into our sights the moment we cruised into the town. I should have known better. After all, Matamata is a town that practically flourished from the hobbiton tour.
We were all super high to see this! It's only an information center, how can it be so cute
(￣▽￣人)
See the lady there?
She was painting on white spots to make the place look old! I guess they are doing this from time to time.
What they did with my camera when I wasn't aware lol.
In the end we bought the tickets here (against my better judgement) instead of Shires Rest because the price doesn't change. The shuttle bus to and fro Shires Rest was provided but we have to follow the time which beats the purpose of especially renting a car.
But anyway, after a 15-minute ride, we were at the entrance of the Hobbiton Movie Set, the Shires Rest!
leng zhai ma XD? Pity he's not that leng zhai without the sunnies hoho.. i managed to sneak a peek :P
The guide's first question for us was, who hasn't watched/read lotr/Hobbiton? *the only one to put hands up* lol.. I knew I should have watched the hobbiton on plane. The guide then proceed to say that it's ok. He had a lot of customers who never watched the movie before but just came here anyway to make their friends jealous. Actually I don't know why I'm here. I'm not a fan of lotr. I attempted to watch lotr twice but failed miserably by falling asleep ten minutes into the movie. I LOVE to make people jealous *evil grin* but I don't have any friends that are die-hard fans of lotr. I'm here because the other girls wanted to see the movie set but I'm still glad I came.
To construct the movie set, the New Zealand Army was contracted to build a 1.5km road into the site. And the whole construction took 9 months. I did not know a movie could be so.. big.
Yes, the vegetables and plants are real! It must be troublesome to have to maintain a crop.
I love how detailed they are!! When they made the mixture they actually added yogurt in it so that the germs will breed and the wood would rot by itself afterwards. So, while the green and white parts are fake, the yellow parts are real.
I argued with Joyce saying that the clothes must be super-glued to the pegs while she insisted that the clothes are only pegged. And so we proposed our question to the guide.
aaaand Joyce was right （｀・ω・´） The clothes were only held by pegs which are changed regularly. How can this be? The wind is so strong in nz, how can the pegs hold??
Since the movie hobbiton's timeline is set many years before lotr, the tree has to look smaller compared to lotr. And thus, a fake tree was shipped in! And they had a lot of other real trees shipped in, too. I think the trees each costed around 500,000 dollars and the fake tree costed a million over or something but I can't be sure. I only remember them being very very expensive.
This is the only house we were allowed to go up close and take pictures. One thing I dislike about the tour is that there wasn't enough freedom. The guide brings us to one spot and starts to explain. So we can only choose to either listen to his explanations or camwhore. Then when he leaves we have to follow. We can't loiter around or stroll at our own leisure. There was another rombongan(I can't recall the english word for it) a few spots ahead of us and another rombongan a few spots behind us so I can understand why we have to follow the tight schedule. But I didn't pay NZ$75 (rm185) to be herd around like a sheep. And for this photo, everyone had to line up so you have to hurry up and take and leave regardless if you liked the photo or not.
I lined up a second time just for this photo ヾ(*・ω・)ノ The girls also lined up for a second shot but TY and J left when Joyce and I took a few more shots. They felt paiseh and bu hao yi si to let other people wait anymore. Must have soaked up too much of Japanese humbleness over the years. But it's not like we took our sweet time. We were practically running from pose to pose. Plus the only ones behind us was a couple and they insisted that we go ahead first because they wanted to take their time.
And finally! A little time of our own!
Behind me is the Green Dragon where we had a complimentary drink and some time for ourselves.
I assumed in the movies, the green dragon is a pub(?)
I love the fireplace! So cosy. They have 2 different drinks we could choose from. The drinks are especially made for the Green Dragon so you don't get to drink it anywhere but here in the WHOLE wide world...for now anyway. They are trying to change the rules or patents or something so they can sell the drinks outside as well. These people are seriously racking in tons of money.
This is the party tree where the hobbits held their events (at least I believe so). This photo doesn't do the tree justice. It's incredibly huge and magnificent and I was like wahhhh when I saw it from afar.
Look at all the gorgeous places I can't stop to take a picture.
Because I'm on a shuttle bus instead of our own car (。-_-。). I wanted sooo much to come down and take some photos with the sheeps.
We walked around the Matamata town a bit before we drove to Tauranga.
Teach me master!!!
We contemplated between going to the beach (i think going to a beach at night can be pretty fun!) or checking out the town and we went with the latter.
scary looking clowns
Tauranga would have been a very romantic town to stroll around at night.. if I was with a guy lol
The town was so small and easy to navigate that Joyce and J knew the way back to the hostel after driving to the town and supermarket without having to look at the map or use the gps o.o!!
We were back pretty early and I ate my instant mee while the girls cooked XD.
In conclusion, today was good but could have been better if we could have gone to another place. I so wanted to go Waitomo Caves for the glow worms :( But the girls wanted this to be a relaxing trip. And while I dislike those hectic trips where I have to wake up super early and move from one spot to another without any time to take in the beauty (I'm speaking of the tour I went on Beijing), I don't enjoy spending 5 hours doing nothing in the hostel. If we had more days in nz or if the plane tickets had been cheap, I wouldn't have minded at all. Besides if I wanted a relaxing trip I could have just stayed back in Japan and ごろごろ in my room. Surely it has to be more relaxing to be in your own room than to be in a hostel room that's not even a resort?
Last but not least, please enjoy this photo of me pretending to be cute.
And also this photo of me naturally walking.
$$$$$
hobbiton movie set tour - NZ$ 75
YHA Tauranga - NZ$ 25
Ace Rental Cars (for 3 days after dividing by 4 ppl) - NZ$ 47
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