Waitomo and Hobbiton

April 8, 2010


We awoke to a clear day with the mist settled all around us in the valleys and dells. Today we drove to the Coromandel Peninsula which is only about two hours out of Auckland and is a huge holiday camp/cottage area for New Zealanders – the draw being the silky soft fine grey sand beaches and surf. As I was reading the map I noticed a little town not too far off our route called Matamata which turns out to be the site of the Shire or Hobbiton used for the Lord of the Rings – so nothing would do but have a short detour to see it. As with all these things a guided tour is required so we ponied up our money and hopped on the bus. Apparently Peter Jackson flew over all of central North Island looking for rolling hills and the perfect symmetrical tree (the Party Tree) and he found it on the Alexander’s Sheep farm. As with all Lord of the Rings sets it was secret, the NZ armed forces guarded it and there was a 5km no fly zone all around it – 2 pilots even lost their licences trying to film the sets. It was slated for destruction (all the sets across NZ were destroyed after filming) and the area returned to its natural setting however the weather set in and they only got half done. In the meantime the Alexander family renegotiated their agreement and were allowed to keep the 17 hobbit holes that remained and spun it into a tour. It is the only film site still in existence. There is a good deal of construction going on and many of the destroyed hobbit holes are being rebuilt – no one is allowed to say why but of course the worst kept secret in NZ is that Peter Jackson is working on the Hobbit.

Well if you want all your fantasy ideas of what Hobbiton looked like destroyed this is the place to go. The hobbit holes are segments of concrete culvert buried in the hill faced with plywood. All the rock works, bridges, mill, etc. were manufactured on site out of Styrofoam and even the trees, bushes and flowers were imported, setup for the shoot then removed. The only area that looks like the movie is the Party field and tree where Bilbo says goodbye at the start of the movie. Of course we had a dance on the party field and crawl into Bag End and pretended to be hobbits. While it was cheesy we had a laugh.

We headed on to Waihi Beach at the southern end of the Coromandel where we got a brilliant camp site literally on the edge of the beach. Even though it was cold we shivered our way through a swim and body surf, then jumped into the park’s hot tub to warm up. The beach seems to go out forever, you can walk hundreds of meters and be in water only up to the waist. The local river is full of eels, the beach is littered with all manner of shells and Mary Rose managed to get pinched by a crab she stepped on. Tomorrow we head up the peninsula to Hahei where you can dig a hole in the beach and have it fill with geothermally heated water – build your own spa!