Our journey began with a 10 min coach ride from the reception and parking area to The Shire where filming of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies took place. This was and is a sheep farm. In 1998 the director of the movies was doing an aerial search for a location to film these movies when he saw this farm. By 1999, they began preparing the area for filming, including the building of a 1.5 km road built by the New Zealand army!
Our tour guide, Anna, was from Germany; here for a visit initially, but now waiting on papers to allow her to stay longer. She took us on a walking tour for just over an hour. She talked about some of the movie techniques that were used in filming because the “hobbits” were seen as so short and Gandalf was so tall. Some filming was done with a 3 m gap between the “hobbits” and Gandalf which gave the height differential needed. They used another person from New Zealand who was over 7’ tall, augmented by sculpting features to film Gandalf from a distance too.
The Shire had beautiful gardens and flowers throughout. They employ a team of gardeners to look after them.
Most of the hobbit holes are mostly doors with just a little space behind so someone can be seen as going in or out of the door. They are colourful and each one has a set up in front that helps indicate what the occupation was of those who lived there.
There was lots of opportunity for picture taking on the tour.
We had beautiful views of the lake.
Then we came to the Green Dragon where we able to have a drink and snack. It has been restored to that of the film.
All too soon we boarded the bus and returned to the start where we had opportunity to visit the gift shop.
Back we headed to our Airbnb for the night!
Tomorrow we learn about the Māori culture.
Following Joyce & Paul's Travels in Retirement 