We picked up our new campervan this morning. It’s just like the last one. We ubered 1 mile from the hotel to get to the rental office. They were not very busy so we were helped quickly. Once the paperwork was done, we unpacked our suitcases so we could leave them there. We were on the road by 9:15. We had booked tickets at Hobbiton for 1:00 which was about a 2 hour drive. We had a little extra time once we reached Matamata, the home of Hobbiton, so we stopped at the grocery store and stocked up the van.
Hobbiton is the movie set for the hobbit shire in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies. Peter Jackson, the films’ director, found the site by flying around the island in a helicopter. The alternative was “combining” several sites to cover all the shire scenes. When they found the site it was a working sheep farm. They built the set for the Lord of the Rings movies and then, per the contract, it was all removed. Then they decided to make the Hobbit trilogy so they rebuilt the whole thing again! However this time the contract did not have the clause requiring the site to be demolished. Since then the farm owners have turned it into a tourist attraction that draws up to 3,000 people per day in the summer. During the tour though the shire we learned about how they made the movie and how they made the hobbits look little especially compared to Gandoff. It was fun to see, now I need to watch the movies again. Here are pictures from Hobbiton.
We left Hobbiton around 3:30 and continued our journey. We had booked a campsite just outside of Rotorua, right in front of Blue Lake. We arrived and got checked in. We have a nice view of the lake.
That evening Rick made lamb steaks which were good but not as good as the lamb chops we had on the south island. I spent the evening doing more research on what to do and where to go. It seems to be a continuous process!
Here is our route today.
