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Well, it wasn't that unexpected because we booked this trip back in January, when we were in a booking frenzy sorting out the rest of our trip, but we couldn't come to New Zealand and not visit the set of some of the most successful movies ever made - Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Yes, we took a daytrip to Hobbiton to see the Shire, home of Bilbo and Frodo. It was actually really good, very interesting and not at all nerdy. We got up very early to get the coach from Auckland out to Matamata, the small town near the set, and then got onto our movie tour bus to go out to the set. Once we arrived we picked up our guide and then it was straight off to the set, which is in the middle of private farmland (lucky farmers for having their land picked to be the set of the Shire!). As soon as we were off the bus it was a quick walk through some little paths to get right to the heart of the set, arriving via the track where you first see Frodo and Gandalf at the start of the very first LOTR movie, and we were surrounded straight away with Hobbit holes. We got to take loads of photos, and found out that the set designers made 2 sizes of hobbit holes, one at 90% scale so that the hobbits look like a normal size when next to their homes, and some at 60% scale so that everyone else looks huge! We then started off walking around the set, past a vegetable garden which is actually full of real vegetables, and up the hill towards Bag End, Bilbo's house. On the way we had more photos next to and inside hobbit holes, although there isn't actually anything inside them, just a hole lined with wood. At the top of the hill was the most famous hobbit hole, Bilbo's house, so we stopped for a while to get lots of photos and we even got a leaf each from the tree above the hobbit hole (they are fake, but were probably on the tree when they were filming the Hobbit films!). It had got a bit showery at this point, but when it stopped there was a beautiful rainbow over the lake below us. We then headed down the hill towards Sam's house and the party tree, before crossing over a little bridge to get to the Green Dragon Inn. This building has been properly kitted out, complete with a roaring fire, and we got a complimentary glass of cider included in our tour, which is brewed specially just for the Hobbiton movie set tours! We chilled out with our drinks and bought some food as well, before it was time to get going back to the bus, with just enough time to take some final photos. Neither of us are massive LOTR or Hobbit fans, but it was actually a really fun day and it was cool to be on a real movie set, especially where they had gone to so much trouble to get every single detail correct.
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