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With airfares soaring, and the New Zealand dollar diving, a staycation is increasingly on the agenda for many Kiwis this Christmas break. Fortunately, we are singularly blessed to live in a place where being a tourist in our own country comes with multiple options.
We have the beaches, forest and glorious vistas, but more than that, we have Lord of the Rings. In fact, it is often the easiest way to identify ourselves when travelling abroad (and something those cheeky Aussies can’t claim!)
I freely admit I am a huge Lord of the Rings nerd, having read all the books multiple times, rewatch the movies every Christmas and have much treasured Art of the Lord of the Rings book signed by Sir Richard Taylor.
It was in this spirit that I headed to the International Hobbits Day in Hobbiton on September 22 with a like-minded group of fellow nerds,organised by costumiers’ extraordinaire Rozanne and Paul de Wild.
The event is held every year to celebrate the shared birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.
We were all in costume, which caught the attention of the Matamata police as we waited at the information centre, but we weren’t sent to the Black Pits of Barad-Dur, instead they just took some photos. We then jumped on our Hobbit bus leaving behind a cold and rainy Matamata for the peaceful valley of Hobbiton.
I’ve visited and worked on numerous movie sets, and no matter how real they may look, the illusion is paper thin. The magic of Hobbiton is that it feels real. As you walk into the entrance of the sheltered valley, you are greeted with lush gardens and all the magical Hobbit Houses. Of course, the majority are just exteriors, but the gardens, ponds and trees ground you in reality.
I’d visited Hobbiton on a standard tour, but with special events like International Hobbits Day, you have a longer time and fewer people visiting, so we ambled through the gardens until we reached Bagshot Row, where two of the houses now have interiors as well.
Once you explore a Hobbit Home, you will forever wish you could live in one; the amount of detail that has gone into these is extraordinary although our guide did say they had to glue and lock things down as so many items went missing after they first opened.
After dragging myself away from the Hobbit Hole and wishing I could have the design team come by my house, we headed down to the Green Dragon Inn for a cider and the tents full of yummy food and festivities for the rest of the evening, where we ate and drank, made merry and wished that we could linger there much longer. As the earlier rain cleared, and the lights came out, it was easy to make-believe you were a resident, refreshing yourself with a cider and a second dinner while dreaming of your next big adventure.
For details of upcoming events at Hobbiton, check the website for details www.hobbitontours.com/
