A shimmering heat haze danced above the single track road that glistened blackly under the cloudless summer sky. Verdant paddocks lined with poplars rhythmically swaying in the light breeze sped past, our passage observed only by disinterested cows lazily masticating and the occasional farmer mechanically turning his drying hay.
By Maramarua the excitement of the journey had begun to wear off, suppressed by the lulling comfort of a smooth highway and a warm day. But on joining this rolling country road, the console-GPS counting down the kilometres, the previously somnolent air was fast giving way to a palpable sense of collective anticipation. ‘Nearly there’ I said, ‘plenty of time to spare’.
‘A tour operator, like a wizard is never late Frodo Baggins’ intoned a voice behind me; continuing in perfect Gandalf ‘Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to’. Yet another peal of laughter rang round the car, and the middle-aged merchant banker from New Jersey glowed in our communal admiration for his faultless Gandalf.
‘Hobbitses, my preciouses!’ came an excited croak from beside me and there in front of us was our destination, the gateway to Middle Earth.
Set amongst the impossibly green hills of the Waikato the Shire’s Rest Café may look more shearing-shed than mythical portal, but it is a gateway nonetheless. And it’s the countryside in this part of North Island that caused film-maker Peter Jackson, skimming the countryside in an aerial location hunt for his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, to light upon the Alexander Farm.
It is now more than a decade since Jackson spectacularly brought JRR Tolkien’s mythical people to life. To do so the film-makers needed a home for the Hobbits so the New Zealand army laid a new road, 1.5km long, to the site. An oak tree from nearby Matamata was sawn into a giant jigsaw and reconstructed on site, where tens of thousands of artificial leaves from Taiwan were wired to the tree. A Hobbit village, comprising 37 hobbit holes, was painstakingly constructed from timber and polystyrene. And in every year since as many as 60,000 people have visited the set.
In 2011 the carpenters, painters and designers returned to refurbish the old hobbit holes and complement them with new, grander ones and for over a year the set rang to the sound of craftsmen at work. Then, shrouded in secrecy, the set was closed for 6 weeks as Bilbo, Gandalf and a host of other well-loved characters returned for the filming of the trilogy’s 2-movie prequel, The Hobbit.
Today the expanded set is a remarkable testament to the film-makers art, transporting 
visitors right to the very heart of The Shire. Although many of the site’s guests are diehard Lord of the Rings enthusiasts, including at least one 6’6” German devotee who arrived dressed as a Hobbit and announced he wouldn’t be leaving as he was ‘at last’ home, just as many have little more than a passing interest in the story and some even refute having seen the movies. What is undeniable though is that a visit to Hobbiton, even if you have only the most passing interest in movie-making, is hugely enjoyable.
With the first of the new movies due to go on general release by Christmas it seems almost inevitable that there will be a significant resurgence in interest in Tolkien’s stories; a supposition that seems to be borne out by the increasing number of people asking us for private tours to Hobbiton.
Although I’ve never really been ‘in to’ any movie sufficiently to make me want to attend a conference, for example like the Trekkies do; if anything I’d always seen myself as a bit of a Star Wars fan. But Hobbiton and the hobbits are undoubtedly growing on me. Nonetheless, I leave the final word on Hobbiton to another wise-one of diminutive stature,
Hobbiton,
enjoy yourself you will,
hmmm
