Welcome to the Shire! Outside of Matamata, on the North Island of New Zealand, this enchanting village became the perfect setting for the movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies! Hope you will experience the magic with us.

Day 65, Saturday, November 9: Hobbiton Movie Set

From our base at Lake Okareka, we drove for an hour and a half to our destination, the Hobbiton Movie Set.

We saw beautiful farmlands, and as we got closer to the actual site, it became obvious why Sir Peter Jackson chose this picturesque rolling farmland as the set for his movie adaptation. It’s an amazing and heartwarming landscape with rolling hills, which I love. I could be living here and enjoying my life to the fullest!

We checked in at the ticketing office and boarded a bus that took us in 10 minutes to Hobbiton.

While on the bus – where the music from the film was playing to get you into the mood – we learned from our guide how Sir Peter Jackson found – from a helicopter ride in 1998 – the Alexander family’s sheep and beef farm as the perfect location for his films.

During our guided walking tour through the 12-acre movie set, we enjoyed seeing the hobbit holes where the hobbits lived.

Our guide pointed out the most famous locations and talked about many details of the making of the films.

We even explored the interior of a typical (and very charming) hobbit’s home.

In the end, we visited The Green Dragon Inn, the “home to the brew for the brave and true!”

Here we enjoyed a complimentary beverage: a traditional ale for me and a non-alcoholic ginger beer for Steve (after all, he had to drive us back to our accommodation).

This concluded our lovely Middle-earth adventure. We promised each other that back home in Seattle we would re-watch the movies.

On our way back to Lake Okareka, we did some grocery shopping in Rotorua, and reached the “bach” at 4 pm. There still was time for a short walk (almost two hours!) around the lake before we settled for the night.