Blogs from Matamata, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 4

Day 99 13th December We slept like logs, in fact it was one of the best night’s sleep we’d had since we’d left London 3 months previously. We also loved the little camp stove which was super powerful and we had an excellent breakfast of eggs, beans and toast, fabulous. We took our time heading off and eventually left the campsite on our way to Hobbiton. Way back in 1999 when Peter Jackson was scouting for locations to film Lord of the Rings, he flew over this little known part of New Zealand, and thought it was perfect for the Shire/Hobbiton scenes. It was, (and still is) a huge sheep farm, and when Peter Jackson approached the owners to discuss filming there, they responded with, “What’s Lord of the Rings?” (!!). Although most of the other ... read more

OK, so when you hire an Escape.co.nz camper van, you have no choice in the design, but to be honest, they’re all pretty cool anyway. “Would you prefer manual or automatic” said the girl who allocated our home on wheels for the next 2 weeks. “I’d like a manual please” I replied. “Oh dear, we only have automatic left I’m afraid. Have you driven automatic before?” “Yes of course, that’s fine” I replied, looking at her over my specs. Only driven an automatic twice before, once about 15 years ago to pick up a company client from the railway station and the other to turn an old ladies car around in a car park, cause she didn’t know how to reverse her automatic car!!!! How difficult could this be? We piled our stuff into the back ... read more

45min drive from Rotorua, we traveled to Matamata for the famous Hobbiton Tour. This was a normal peace small town like others. Becoz of the Alexander family rent out their farm for Lord of the Rings filming; this place becomes famous, flooded by tourists to see where the Hobbit stays in the film. And I think the government should grant Alexanders the royal family who contributes tonnes of income from the tourists. We took the tour and there’s a van ferry us to the set from Matamata’s I-site. It’s 20min away from I-site to the set. On the way, the driver kept giving information about the filming, where the audition held, how excited the residents in Matamata were to involve in the filming. I was a media-worker in Malaysia, involved in TV programmes filming for about ... read more

It's not every day you can say that you've been to one of the most unusual and memorable places on (Middle)Earth but today we did just that. Today, you see, we went to Hobbiton! If you're not a Lord of the Rings fan, then you will have no idea what I'm wittering on about but today we got to see the movie set for Hobbiton, home of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. It was an early start for us today with Liz and Allard picking us up at 7.30am before embarking on a good 3-hour drive to the little town of Matamata, deep in the Kiwi countryside south of Auckland. The town itself is not normally anything to write home about but it seemed we had picked the best day to visit aswhen we arrived, preparations were ... read more