On the north island there are rolling green hills, with bountiful sheep and cattle. But in the center is a most charmingly hilly and sheep laden area that was the site, twice, of Hobbiton. I know, I know, it smacks of touristy but oh my, we loved it. They dismantled the other sets in New Zealand, but the owners of the farm negotiated to keep this site. And have been maintaining the most magical place since then. You could just imagine Bilbo Baggins there.
Hobbits, in case you’ve been living in a cave and don’t know, are not the size of humans. Figure 60-80% scale for these places. They live in these nifty homes in the hillside of Middle Earth. The set is meticulously detailed, and most of it is real. Real wood for the headers, real vegetables, real honey in the jars, real clothes on the laundry lines. The clothes are all scaled down to size (or children’s clothes). Each home (there are 39) has clues to what the person who lives there does (baker, cheesemaker, smith, etc). You can go inside a couple of the homes, there too, a ton of detail. It was delightful.
Jim, you will notice, was not in these pics. That’s because he flew to the South Island (and back, all in one day) to deliver his muzzleloader so we wouldn’t have to chain it to the car.
Then we went to the beach, but that’s another story.
Take lots of notes. We could build a hobbit abode on the lower lot! If needed, I could travel there later to get more details.
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