Is the Hobbiton tour worth it?? Let me say this… Whether you’re a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy or not, I *HIGHLY* recommend visiting Hobbiton when traveling through New Zealand. But let me back up a little…
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a series of books by J. R. R. Tolkein published from 1937 to 1955. Director, Peter Jackson, brought this popular series to screen from 2001-2003, and 2012-2014. I hadn’t read the books myself (still havent… š³) but knowing I was going to New Zealand and would be visiting Hobbiton in person, I brushed up on all the movies with a friend who’s a SERIOUS fan. Now, having visited Hobbiton, I can attest to to the fact that whether you’ve read the books and seen the movies or not, I’m confident most everyone would enjoy this adorable little movie set.
Is The Hobbiton Tour Worth It? YES!
My travel compadres and I opted to do the standard two hour guided walking tour and it was perfect for us. **Tour options and ticket pricing can be found on the Hobbiton Movie Set Tours website.** Our tour guide was awesome! And I’m sure most all of them are… He had tons of movie facts and tid bits to share that were super fascinating. Aaaannnddd….. I may or may not have taken some notes….. š But that means I’m able to (sort of?) recreate the tour to some (SMALL) extent, yeah??? š Haha well either way here’s a trip to Hobbiton through my camera lense (and nerd notes…) š
This is the garden Bilbo runs through when he decides he wants to go on an adventure in the first Hobbit movie. šWhile building Hobbiton the creators wanted it to look like it had been around for a while (even though it was essentially brand new). One of the (many) details they added to help accomplish this was the moss on the picket fences. They created it with fake moss-like materials but also added yogurt into the mixture to encourage real moss growth.Apparently Peter Jackson (the director of all the LOTR and Hobbit movies) wanted to stay as true to the books as possible. That being said, there’s a line somewhere at the end of the last book (I think?) that talks about Sam coming back to the shire and seeing children making pyramids with fresh plums from the trees. So of course that meant Hobbiton needed plum trees! Only problem… Actual plum trees would have been too large for the small scale that Hobbiton was built in… So these are actually dwarf apple trees (er, I think? Or some other type of dwarf fruit trees…) But Peter Jackson still wanted those plums… So someone on the crew (bless their soul) had to pluck EVERY leaf and EVERY fruit from EVERY tree and wire on fake plums and plum tree leaves. (Oh but it gets better…) When the final theatrical cut of the film was made, the trees didn’t even make an appearance in it! In order to see these trees in the movies you have to watch the EXTENDED edition, and they’re only on screen for no more than like 3 seconds. Yikes…..This small pond was man-made; but, that didn’t stop the frogs from finding their way to it. Apparently the frogs in this pond got SO loud at some point that the actors couldn’t hear themselves and each other saying their lines… So someone on the crew had to wade into the pond, collect all the frogs, and relocate them to another place.Each hobbit hole has a little theme/accessory to go along with it, like this hobbit hole which belongs to the bee keeper. (Hence the little sign at the front walkway and the bee box by the front door.)The hobbit hole back in the hill was for the town drunkard. It’s probably way too small to see, but there’s a jug of alcohol back there toward the left.Hobbit laundry was hanging out to “dry” EVERYWHERE. Another tactic that was used to help make Hobbiton look like it had been around for a while actually had to do with these little laundry lines. Every morning a crew member had to walk up the hills to each hobbit hole and hang laundry up on the lines, and then walk back up the hills at night to take the laundry down. (This was to help tread the grass down a bit and make it look worn/well walked on.)A little size perspective for you… In order to qualify to play a hobbit as an extra, men couldn’t be taller than 5’2 and women couldn’t be taller than 5′. (Clearly I wouldn’t have qualifed…)The baker’s hobit hole!You can’t go inside the hobbit holes… There’s nothing more than a tiny little entry way inside them! All of the scenes filmed inside the hobbit’s homes were done in studios.This is the view of the party ground. (Where Bilbo’s birthday party is held in LOTR). Just imagine tents, dancing hobbits, and Merry and Pippin setting off a firework. šMore laundry… And the tree on top of the Baggins’ house! Apparently, for the LOTR films the tree that stood here was a small piece of a super huge tree. So after filming I’m pretty sure it went to tree heaven. When Hobbiton was rebuilt for the Hobbit movies, they needed another tree to go on top of the Baggins’ home… So this fake one was created and placed here. (Our tour guide told us it was looking a little bare at the moment because a few of its branches were in the shop getting some fresh leaves put on.) The trick with this tree was that it needed to look younger than the tree in the LOTR movies. When Peter Jackson saw this tree for the first time he wasn’t totally satisfied with the coloring and the age it made it look. So (if I remember correctly…) filming was delayed for like 3 days while a crew member spray painted each individual leaf to the color of Peter Jackson’s liking. (Are you picking up on that fact that Peter Jackson had a pretty specific vision for the way he wanted Middle-earth to look…?) Another little tid bit on his attention to detail: There’s probably about, a bajillion sheep in New Zealand. Like, tons and TONS of sheep. 7 sheep for every one person in New Zealand to be exact. You would think that at least ONE of them would get to be in the movies, right?! WRONG. Peter Jackson didn’t think the sheep in New Zealand looked Middle-earth-y enough. So he had a different breed of sheep shipped in for filming. Haha so crazy, right???
And here’s the Baggins’ home!
The bench on the bottom right is the actual one that Bilbo and Gandalf are sitting on while they smoke pipes and watch the sunset in LOTR. The only problem is that the sun sets in the west and this little hobbit home is facing east… So they filmed that scene at sunrise instead and played the sunrise in reverse so it would look like sunset. Our tour guide told us that if you watch that scene super closely you can see two birds flying backwards at one point.Here’s another view of the party grounds. Fun fact for you about the scene where Merry and Pippin set off the firework… The actors didn’t know the crew planned for the tent to blow off the ground when the firework went off. So Pippin’s little girlie squeal is a completely genuine one. šThe “party tree.” This tree was a huge factor in Peter Jackson’s desire to use this location for Hobbiton. He felt like it was the perfect backdrop for the party scene. Also, Bilbo’s speech at his birthday party was totally improvised. And the actor was doing so well with it that when the birthday cake caught on fire in the background, they kept the cameras rolling until he finished speaking… and THEN put out the fire.Russell Alexander (the owner of the land [which is still a working farm] where Hobbiton was built) said he had been seriously considering chopping this tree down for fire wood not long before he was contacted by film location scouts to see if he’d let them use his land for the LOTR movies. (Good thing he hadn’t taken an ax to it yet!) When Russell Alexander was approached about letting Hobbition be rebuilt for the filming of the Hobbit movies, he (obviously) said that would be fine but asked if they could make the set more permanent this time. (Apparently quite a few die hard fans found their way to his farm and wanted to check things out.) The filmmakers agreed and they rebuilt Hobbiton to last for at least 50 years! (So if you’re thinking you’d like to visit at some point, there’s still plenty of time.) šSamwise Gamgee’s house. The little girl who runs to Sam at the end of Return of the King is actually the actor’s daughter. And the baby boy that his wife Rosie is holding is actually the actress’ son. Peter Jackson liked to use actors’ children because he felt like that helped make their performances more genuine. And his kids (Peter Jackson’s) are actually in a scene in LOTR where Gandalf is telling stories and setting off fireworks for a group of kids at Bilbo’s birthday party.The bridge that leads over to the Green Dragon. You see this bridge in a scene where Gandalf crosses over it in his horse cart.Russell Alexander had a hard time letting go of this lake because he really loved to duck hunt on it.The Green Dragon!Here’s the inside of the Green Dragon. It was summer in New Zealand and we were melting hot! So we were glad to cool off in here and have something cold to drink. š
And that’s Hobbiton! *Sigh…* š
Safe travels, friends. šš
CE
HI! IāM CHELSEA.
I Iām a Southern California native and a Chicago transplant who loves to travel, take pictures and share my adventures.
Quotes for Traveling Alone: Before sharing the quotes for traveling alone, I'll share a story. I was 17 when I traveled to Europe for the first time. My grandma took my cousin and me on a coach tour that went to Rome, Florence, Venice, Lucerne, Paris and London. I was...
