In Tauranga we took our first ship’s tour. We drove over the Kaimai range from Tauranga
to the Hobbiton movie set. This is where
both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the new Hobbit movies were filmed. There is quite an interesting story we were
told of how this came to be the Shire. Peter Jackson’s wife is from New Zealand and
she suggested this was the location to use for the homes of the Hobbits. So after a fly over in a helicopter they
narrowed it down to the Alexander family sheep farm in Matamata, NZ. They soon knocked on the farmhouse door,
fortunately it was during the halftime of the NZ vs Australia rugby match. They asked if they could have a look around
and were told the owner was quite busy but feel free to look around on their
own. Well off they went and nothing further
was noted by the Alexander family until about 6 months later when they received
a phone call asking if they could use their land. Mr. Alexander had no idea what a Hobbit was
but fortunately still agreed. The rest,
as they say is history.
We had a wonderful tour guide named Sarah who lead us all around
the Shire. We saw the view that is the opening
scene with Gandolf and the wagon. We
also saw the notable oak tree and saw a tree that had all its leaves faked onto
the tree. They had them all set and then
Peter Jackson fell ill. When shooting
resumed 6 months later, the colors had faded and the director requested they
all be painted to the color that suited him. For the Hobbit movies they were taken down and
all replaced with suitable permanent props.
We also saw the home of Sam, which had 2 doors, the only home in the
shire with 2 doors. The yellow one is
the one shown in the closing of the movie when Sam announces he has returned
home.
All in all the tour was wonderful. We even got to go into one of the Hobbit
homes. At the conclusion of the tour we
went into the pub for a drink. I had a
cider and “C” a ginger beer (quickly replaced by water as the taste did not
appeal).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hi, comments are welcome but please refrain from identifying where we live in real life. I will review comments before they are posted to ensure no robot commentors are present. It may take several days for me to get back to you but I will make every effort to respond to comments. Thanks for visiting my blog.