Hobbiton Magic
Hobbiton
Another sunny day and we are off at 7:00am from Rotorua to get to our 9:00am tour of Hobbiton. I’m so excited.
Hobbiton is the location for the filming of the scenes of “The Shire” in the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy and then The Hobbit trilogy. The set was 
actually dismantled after LOTR was filmed and then recreated 10 years later on a permanent basis for the filming of The Hobbit.
Director Peter Jackson found the site on a helicopter flyby while searching for potential filming locations. The site is on a 1,250 acre sheep & cattle farm of which 
12 acres was used to create The Shire.
Hobbiton is my favourite part of our whole trip; absolutely enchanting. Everything is done with so much attention to detail.
Click here for a short video.
They have a new area, Bagshot Row that just opened three months ago. Here we go right into the hobbit holes, touch things, sit on the furniture. It is totally delightful.
I will let the pictures do the talking.
At the end of the tour we are brought to the Green Dragon Inn for complimentary beer or non-alcoholic drinks. Guess which we chose? Our guide says that this inn serves the most beer in New Zealand because of the number of guests who come for the tour. We booked our ticket online weeks in advance and even then only spots for the early morning tours were still available.
To Auckland and Cornwall Park
We are now on our way to Auckland. We have hit a traffic jam. Argh. Our two hour drive has turned into a four hour drive due to road construction delays. Yikes.
In Auckland we head directly to Cornwall Park which is a 425 acre park with views, historical sites, pathways and more. It is a bit like Toronto’s High Park but with sheep grazing in certain areas.
We try hokey pokey ice cream (which is a New Zealand thing). It is a vanilla ice cream with small hunks of honeycomb toffee.
St. Helier Beach Area
We head to our AirBnb which is in St Helier, a pretty beachside town near Auckland. We check in, head to supper and then walk the beach boardwalk for sunset. Unfortunately the clouds rolled in so no sunset tonight.
This Hobbiton place really looks amazing, like a Fairy tail story from the middle age. Thanks for Sharing these photos. At the beginning I hesitate if it was a painting or a real picture, they are enchanting as you described.
It is the movie set used in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit Movies. I know, it is so perfect it just doesn’t look real. But believe it or not, even the pumpkins are real pumpkins nurtured by the gardeners.