Day 29 - Friday 2 February 2024

Ladies and Gentlemen of blogland; by any standards today has been most excellent. 

The alarm went off a bit early this morning by design; a 05:30 alarm as I wanted to be away from the hotel at 06:30. My plan today was to visit Hobbiton (which is an hour away) for the 08:30 tour. I have to be checked in 20 minutes before that, and adding a bit of contingency gives me a departure of 2 hours before my tour starts.

As it transpired, it was a fairly uneventful trip over; I had a bit of a drive in the clouds at the top of the hills out of Tauranga, but apart from that Google Maps did it's job and delivered me to the Hobbiton parking lot an hour before tour time. Checked in nice and early, and the cafe was open, so a chance to have a coffee before we started.

Why the early tour time? Tours depart every 10 minutes, and 08:30 was the second tour of the day. My line of thought was that the early tours probably aren't that popular, and that's the way it turned out. Usually the tours groups are around 40 people; ours was fourteen, and the one before us was only about 20 folks, so no maddening crowds to get frustrated by!

A bus took us from the car park about 10 minutes up the road to the entrance to the site, and the first place we arrived at was the iconic sunken lane that opened up into Hobbiton. The commentary from the guide was excellent, and he was able to point out all of the places certain things happened in the movies. The first place we stopped was at an overview of the whole of Hobbiton, from the Party Tree to Bag End and Bagshot End (if you know, you know ...... if not, you're wondering what the hell I'm on about!). What was interesting here was that several scenes were all filmed in pretty much the same spot but with cameras pointing in different directions. 

We them made our way up to Bag End at the top of the hill, the abode of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in the movies. It was all set up for Bilbo's Eleventyfirst birthday party, so set at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. The 'Party business only' sign was on the gate, a pipe and book was on the bench, the door was ajar as if someone had just disappeared inside; all very well thought out and presented. 

We then walked down the hill to the Party Field. Here we learned that after the filming of The Lord of the Rings, the site here had been taken apart except for a few hobbit holes, and people had started to come and see what was left. Then filming was planned for The Hobbit, the landowner negotiated with the film company, and more permanent structures were created that could be used after filming had happened, so we now have Hobbiton as a permanent feature.

Onwards once more, and on to Bagshot Row, where Sam Gamgee lived. Here they have a brand new feature. Most of the hobbit holes are just doors with nothing behind, but on Bagshot Row they removed the old Hobbit holes, and built fully accessible and equipped holes that guests visit and make their way through. These only opened a couple of months ago, and they are really well done. We spent about a quarter of an hour in one, and when we exited out the back we had a view of the Green Dragon pub.

The original Green Dragon built for The Lord of the Rings was deliberately burned down and filmed at the end of use, and the footage used for when Frodo looked into the mirror in Lothlorien. A new Green Dragon was built for The Hobbit, and once again this is a usable space where we went and had a complimentary beer; I had a very nice stout. The Green Dragon itself is undergoing a lot of work at the moment as it's being re-thatched ..... they have bought thatchers in from the UK to do this.

That bought us to the end of the 2.5 hour Hobbiton tour as we were bussed back to the car parks once more. It's something I've been looking forward to from well before this trip was booked, and I wasn't disappointed. It's so well thought out, and ran like clockwork. If you come this way, you have to do this.

It was past 11:00 by the time I returned to the car, and I had another plan for today; as if one excellent thing wasn't enough, I was greedy for more. When I was planning routes, I noted that a half hour from Hobbiton there was a waterfall, but not just any old waterfall .... oh no! This was Wairere Falls, only the highest falls in the North Island. And only a 45 minute hike each way from the car park.

Now, I'm starting to understand the concept of a hike in New Zealand; it's invariably uphill, hot and humid and a lot of hard work, but totally worth it in the end.

Away from the car park at 11:45, and the first people I meet on the path were a French couple who'd been on my tour in Hobbiton. From the car park I entered the New Zealand forest, and started a steady climb along a well formed track. Before long I was scrambling on rocks as the path followed a stream up a deep valley, climbing constantly. The uphill seemed never ending, until suddenly I was going downhill for a few hundred meters. This was followed by shallow steps (whoever made this obviously didn't consider short legs as they were too far apart for me to take one each step, but not far enough apart to take two useful steps!). Finally, I reached some wooden steps that seemed to just go straight up. As I reached the top of the steps there was a bit more scrambling over rocks, and then the waterfall viewpoint was reached.

This was a two tier waterfall where the top fall was clearly in the wind as the water seemed to be being blown in all directions, even back up from whence it came. I don't think there is any secret that I do enjoy a waterfall, but this one was exceptional and totally worth the effort of getting up there; it had taken me 40 minutes.

After a half hour taking in the sights (and cooling down in the refreshing breeze), I made my way back down to the car park and reaffirmed my view that I much prefer hiking uphill to downhill; my knees weren't very happy when I returned to the car. 

Into Matamata for some food, and then back on the road to Tauranga, where I arrived at the hotel just before 16:00. That's pretty much it for today.

As I suggested at the start, today has been excellent. It would have been excellent with either Hobbiton or Wairere Falls, but to have put them both into one day is just frankly greedy. I somehow don't think that I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight.