A Trip To The Shire

Hello Wonderful People!

 

Warning: contains strong elements of  Geek.

To call myself a Lord of the Rings nerd is a slight understatement. I love the books and am absolutely obsessed with the films. I could probably quote around 85% of all three films, with the (completely unintended) innuendos being my fave: 'is that an Orc horn?' and 'take it Gandalf, take it!' Tehehehehe. Immature quotes aside, the thought of going to visit Hobbiton, the set of the Shire, actually filled me with childish excitement. If I'm honest, it was probably the highlight of my whole New Zealand trip.

We booked the tour directly through the Hobbiton website for around £50 which also included a pick up and drop off in Rotorua, which is where we were staying. It took just under an hour to get to Hobbiton and we had the nicest/ most hilarious bus driver who gave us a little guided tour through the beautiful countryside. When we finally arrived at the meeting point I could hardly contain my excitement, I was actually going to see the Shire, WHAT THE HELL. From the meeting point we piled onto a bus with our tour group and it took us off down a track into the Shire. I learnt around 238282 facts about the making of Lord of the Rings, and I'll try not to bore you with all of them, but I'll slip a few in here and there.

Fun Fact Number One: The New Zealand army had to be drafted in to help with the construction of the whole set and to help keep it all on the down low. Obviously the making of such a huge film series needed to be kept secret, so they used the army as a cover story, saying they were doing several training exercises. Sneaky.

 

My first glimpse of the Shire was amazing, it looked exactly like it does in the films and seeing Bag End perched on top of the hill was so cool. Me and my friend started to get embarrassingly excited and may have re-enacted the scene where Gandalf rides into the Shire and sets off some fireworks in his cart. Geeky, I know. We were slowly shown round the different hobbit holes, all of which were different sizes for filming purposes and I obviously had to have a picture outside every single one! There was a small part of the Shire that we could see, as it had been recently built for the filming of the three new Hobbit films. As the final film hasn't been released yet, this part of the set isn't allowed to be viewed by the public yet, boo. But there was still lots to see in the rest of the Shire, so I wasn't too upset.

 

 

Fun Fact Number Two: Peter Jackson (the director of the films, for those not in the know) paid meticulous attention to detail. A trained hawk was hired to fly around the set to make sure no native birds were in the shot. Someone was also employed the walk up and down the same path to a washing line for a fortnight, to ensure the path looks naturally worn. The actors were also allowed their children on set and some of them even featured in the film, to show a more genuine relationship between characters. For example, at the very end of Return of the King Sam's daughter in the film is played by his real daughter and the baby Rosie is holding is her baby in real life. Ain't that nice.  

 
My illusions were slightly shattered when we wee allowed to go into one of the hobbit holes for a picture. The inside was grey concrete, with just enough room to shuffle around; not the cosy hobbit interior I was hoping for. I still got some cracking pictures and even pretended to be the size of a hobbit (as you do) for authenticity sake. LOLZ. We were now holding the group up as we were taking so many pictures (it needed to be done) and the next stop was Bag End so people were getting slightly impatient, whoops.

Bag End was actually amazing and I wanted to shed a little tear at the thought of being in the same spot as Sir Ian Mckellen (Gandy) and Elijah Wood (Frodo). Bag End was one of the few hobbit holes that was normal size and in proportion to the average adult. Sadly we weren't allowed into Bag End (sniff) or the garden, but I still got some cracking pics!

Fun Fact Number Three: The tree on top of Bag End isn't real. It was constructed from branches from another tree in order to be in proportion with the little hobbit holes. All the leaves on the tree are also fake and were hand made and individually attached to the branches.

The final stop of the tour was the Green Dragon pub, where we got a free mug of either cider or beer, that was specially brewed for Hobbiton. The pub was super cute and I could happily have stayed there all day! Sadly, we soon had to head back to the meeting point and we just had time for a quick nosey around the gift shop. I was extremely tempted to invest in a replica of Gandalf's staff, however I couldn't quite justify spending nearly £500. Would have been hilarious to whip out the staff in the middle of the road and shout 'you shall not pass!' I did buy a 'Sobering Thought' beer though as a souvenir for the boyfriend. Too kind.

Fun Fact Number Four: 'Sobering Thought' beer was brewed to be used during the filming of Bilbo's birthday party. However as it took so long to film, it is only 1.5% so the actors couldn't get drunk on set - hence the witty play on words 'Sobering Thought'.

Even if you aren't a massive LOTR fan, a trip to Hobbiton is a must if you're in New Zealand. Visiting a film set is pretty cool anyway and if you are a LOTR then it is probably one of the coolest things you'll do.

Goodbye peeps!