We got up early and had a quick breakfast of cereal bars and coffee then packed up the room. After checking out where the hotel was confused as to which room we were actually in we were in 509 but were supposed to be in 409 and their records said we were in 503 so they were very confused. They eventually sorted themselves out and then arranged for us to get a tazi to the airport where we were picking up the hire car.
We had arranged a cheap hire car with an outfit called Jucy car hire who did rentals of older cars for much less money than other vendors would have charged us. We got a small car a Hyndai Getz which had something like 110000 miles on the clock. With our luggage and ourselves it was fairly full but usable. It’s been a while since I’ve driven a manual car so my clutch manipulation skills are touch rusty but I drove it over to a nearby shopping center where we stopped for some lunch/breakfast.
I had a big breakfast which included a little bit of everything bacon, sausage, pouched eggs, salad cooked tomato, toast, chips and hash browns. Byrnie had eggs Benedict which they had put spinach on which in my opinion just ruins it.
We had a few coffees and ate our food and then headed into a shop called Warehouse to grab a few things we needed including some stuff to setup our trip time lapse cameras. With that taken care of we setup the car and then set off. Byrnie took the first shift of the drive it was about 2 hours to our first stop.
In order to break up the drive we’d picked a few places to stop enroute and the first of those was Hobbiton set where the Shire portions of Lord of the Rings and the hobbit were shot. It’s on what was a farm in a relatively hidden countryside accessible by a road built by the New Zealand army. It was kept secret during the filming to prevent people finding it. The set was originally supposed to be dismantled after the first set of films was done but some rain meant they had to delay and during that time some people wanted to have a look so the owners renegotiated the deal and setup the tour spliting the profits with Peter Jackson 50/50. They had to rebuild as the original set hadn’t been designed to last very long. The rebuilt set was then used in the Hobbit movie.
The area is surrounded by sheep and cows and a large electric fence stops them from getting in and eating the set, though on our way out there was at least one sheep that had somehow gotten past that defense.
The tour bus took us up the road built by the army which was windy and precarious. We arrived at the path into hobbiton that gandalf took on his cart. There were just over 40 hobbit holes done in hobbiton made of two different scales 90% and 50% to get the size illusion of the small hobbits to work. Most don’t open and the few that do have just enough space for someone to stand inside but they have no real interiors all of those were shot in wellington only the outside shots were shot in the hobbiton set. The attention to detail is quite impressive with each hobbit hole having various stuff around it gardens and vegetable patches clothes on the line tools and furniture lying about windows with stuff behind them. The vegetable patches are maintained by several gardeners and they use the produce in the green dragon and the cafe. The various buildings are designed to look old and well lived in the fences have moss on them that was artificially created by using glue and yoghurt. The washing lines have tracks going to them made by some poor film crew member who spent two weeks walking back and forth along the route to make a noticeable path to the washing line to make it more realistic. The site was originally chosen for the presence of the party tree a huge oak tree that was already there the rest were brought in or made for the film. A lot of the normal trees talked about in the book were too big for the hobbit scale so they took other types of tree stripped them of leaves then wired on the right sort as well as any fruit.
The tree on top of bag end was originally an oak tree they had cut up and reassembled then wired on leaves. For the hobbit movie they made a new tree a completely artificial construction that was made of steel resin and bits of tree. It was out for repair when we were there and the tree was part tree part metal pipes. Bag end is the most elaborately constructed hobbit hole with the most extensive insides, which you aren’t allowed in. It still only goes a little way back into the hill with the interiors being done elsewhere.
The green dragon pub was burnt down in the first films and then rebuilt for the others and now has a full interior that the tour group visits for a free drink. They also have the bridge and the mill which has a turning water wheel driven by a pump that pumps water from the lake into the top of the wheel to make it turn.
We had a nice tour round the set and stopped off at the green dragon for drinks. Byrnie had an ipa I had a ginger beer as I was driving it was very tasty. The beers and cider and maybe the ginger beer were specifically made for the set tour thing and weren’t available anywhere else. They also did some nice snacks Byrnie had beef and ale pie I had cold pork pie with chutney and it was great.
After that we headed back to the bus Byrnie in an attempt to get pictures with noone there lagged behind the group and then missed which route we took to the exit and had to be retrieved by the tour guide. Once out the set we rode back to the carpark and then setup for the next leg of the journey to lake taupo.
The sun was setting by this point and it was soon dark but we made good time and were soon pulling in to our hotel near the shore of the lake. The whole area here is Geo thermally active and we saw a sign saying just “steam!” and almost immediately there were jets of steam by the side of the road. We had a nice little suite with a sitting area bathroom and a bedroom with double bed. The sitting area had two single beds off in a corner.
Since there were a few of these single bed and a double bed rooms we decided to oscillate, Byrnie got the double this time and I’ll get the next one.
We had a drink and some nuts watched a few films including the end of the lackluster Eragon and then the classic interview with a vampire. When 300 came on it was time for bed.
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