Hobbiton

Matamata is the town that has Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. So yes, it is like Rolo, Saskatchewan, famous town of Corner Gas.

We hopped on the bus with our tour guide, a shaved Gandalf-type. BEFORE we left of course, we had to read and understand our confidentiality form. This is bad news for you, but great news for us. Bad news is, we'd get sued if we posted pictures here, so this is all you get:

Ok, here's one more at the silly thing at the visitor centre. Note I wore my hobbitest clothes for the occasion. And my hair is always like a hobbit's.

Good news for us was that because they are going to start filming the Hobbit soon (thus the confidentiality), the tour is not worthless now, it's absolutely beautiful! Our tour guide was great, and super specific (ie "remember how Gandalf drives in and the kids are disappointed and then he sets off fireworks? THAT IS THE VERY BRANCH IN THAT SCENE!" Or, "This is the exact spot where Bilbo did such and such and then he says exact quote").

The hobbit holes are completely real. Well, you can't go in them all, but the brick is brick, rock is rock, gardens are gardens, etc. It's also completely accurate to the books. For example, in the book there are little plum trees, but NZ's plum trees are too tall, so they have a real pear tree planted and they stuck a bunch of plums on it.

Caryn bought The Hobbit within the hour after the tour and we are reading it out loud to each other. We rented and watched LOTR's 1 as soon as we could find a place with a DVD player. It was a nice way to relax after our Tongariro crossing hike (and fitting - the hike is Mt Doom!).

Beautiful spot, Hobbiton. I could live there.