Treading Through the Shire

Map o' the Shire

Been decades since I read The Hobbit and a decade since I watched The Lord of the Rings movies trilogy (LOTR), which were filmed here in New Zealand. Still the prospect of a tromp through the shire is one of the adventures I've looked forward to most on this trip.






This morning we left Rototura and drove to Matamata. where we found a huge thatched Hobbit type dwelling - by the town square.

The video on the bus ride to Hobbiton

Right outside the mega-hut we climbed on board the bus to Hobbiton. The drive crossed loads of beautiful country scenery and farms. I wondered if 'second breakfast' might be included in the day's plans.

A video on the bus ride filled us in on the filming of the LOTR movies.

We passed countryside that is so pretty it looks like a painting

Hobbiton! The first Hobbit movie sets were on the Alexander sheep farm. The sets were styrofoam and other cheap materials so after the filming, the sets were destroyed. But tourists kept asking, 'where are the Hobbit houses?' So when new movies were made, permanent sets of stone and brick were made. Those sets and Hobbit burrows are still there and are a major tourist attraction.

Soon we were on the Alexander Ranch, off the bus and we were given a nice intro, then a walk through the Hobbiton gardens.  Side mention is it was a rainy/drizzly day in the shire, but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm one bit. The only difference it made to me is the sky changed from blue to grey and back to blue over and over.

Veggies were grown that look BIG so the
people would look proportionately smaller 

I loved how quaint and country-ish the gardens and the paths looked. Will keep it all in mind when I put in my own garden.


And then it was up hill, over dale as we wandered through the shire.

The hobbits here use red, a power color!

 So many adorable Hobbit Houses, all built underground with lovely swards of grass for their roofs

Each Hobbit house was cuter than the next. This house one below is Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins. His house has a massive Oak tree on it. the secret is, the tree is not real. It was built for the set. The leaves were attached one at a time, and the story goes, when the leaves were all on the tree, the director mused on it a bit. Then he declared it was not the right color. So all those leaves came off to no doubt, be replaced with younger fresher leaves.

The not real Oak Tree on Baggin's House

Closer look at Bag End where Bilbo lives

The houses each had a little special something about them. One house had an avid fisherman living in it. You knew because it has fishing rod in front, and a sign, 'Gone Fishing'.

No Hobbits here... gone fishin'!

And there were other things that gave a clue as to each home's

Some Hobbitzes love sitting and squirrels

And some Hobbitzes like a game of chess with their dad

All around Hobbiton, there are cute little details that bring the village to life.

Bee hive on the left and I think that's a wash day wringer on the right.

Fish hung out to dry and um... bread for sale, I think!

Laundry always hung on the line to dry, adds that homey feel.

This mailbox is an inspiration

Grey Gerygone

And some Hobbits love to bird... certainly I do

and I birded the whole time in Hobbiton.  On the right is a less than perfect photo but is a less than perfect photo of a lifer bird for me, so there's that

Some Hobbits had lovely feeders out, like  this one with loads of orange slices. There's a chaffinch having a snack on it.

A chaffinch of the Shire

In the Shire, even a Mallard floating around looks like a impressionist painting

I fell in love with this stile, that you walk over to get into 'yonder pasture'

At  the rear of the pack, headed to
the Green Dragon Inn for our free pint

View of the Green Dragon Inn along the way

When our guide walked us down hill we had to cross a beautiful stone bridge. There were lots of ducks and such on the giant pond and some lovely Welcome Swallows.

Over t'left, not a totally focused pic, but I love the pattern of white spots and the long outer tail feathers on the little beauty.

Thatched house on the near side of the pond

The stone bridge that leads to the Green Dragon Inn

Welcome Sparrow perched nearby the big pond

After our 1 mile hike through Hobbiton (that's 1.6 kilometers for Kiwis) it was lovely to enjoy a 'free' pint of one of the following:
Oatbarton Ale, Girdly Amber Ale, Stout, and those craving something non-alcoholic there was Frogmorton Ginger Beer & Sackville Apple Cider.

I quaffed a lovely stein of Stout, my favorite!

Ila headed into the Green Dragon Inn

This where we 'bellied up' to the Bar at the Dragon

The Green Dragon Inn was HUMONGOUS! There were several wings off the main entrance.

Green Dragon Interior

The photo above is a 'main' room in the Dragon, but if you were to do a 180, you'd be facing an entire other branch of the inn, in which you would find the sitting area and more, shown below.

This was my favorite bit of the Dragon.
Love the windows and window seats

Just as we left the Green Dragon, headed for where we would re-board the bus, a right downpouring of rain started up. We had shelter with some farm equipment but it was funny the worst of the wet did not start until we were on our way out. Lucky as Hobbits we were.

After our Hobbiton adventure, Ila and I headed for Aukland, where tomorrow we will do a little exploring... right after our second breakfast.

Te Puia, Māori Arts & Crafts Institute, with a side of Thermal Wonder

Geothermal Valley in Te Puia

This evening's fun started with a van ride to pick up other participants. Everyone was eager for our tour of Te Puia, and our driver was a hoot. There was a young woman from Chile with her Mom. The she translated for her Mom who was - like Ila and me - monolingual. We chatted with them on and off all night.

Arriving at the center our driver gave us the lo down on what we had to look forward to.

The map gives a good idea of the size of the facilities and its land

All started with a walking tour.  For a laugh, we were given a go at pronouncing the word on the sign below... For a second I thought we were in Wales, visiting Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

We visited the beautiful & exquisitely carved Maori food storage , and we were allowed to climb underneath to see where food was stored.

Loosely speaking, this is a Maori
Tupperware Container. Really!

Our guide was a wonderful young woman who has many relatives that also work and make art at the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. There they work at indoctrinating their youth so the old arts and ways of producing art do not fall by the wayside.

Here our guide showed us her tattoos. One arm tatto tells her personal story, and the other shows her family's history.

There were several artists working on projects, and we viewed them from an overhead walkway.

A young artist, in his teens or early 20s, engraving a piece of art.

Traditional Maori clothing
made from wild flax

Wild New Zealand Flax, that is scraped and worked to make textiles.

I got a huge kick out of watching our guide's aunt demonstrating how to make their traditional flax into decorative strips, which are then used in traditional ware. It reminded me very much of how the California Maidu and Miwok work tule. Here's a quicky video of the demo.


And the other thing that thrilled me to pieces in a quirky way was this pair of stuffed birds. They are a male and female Huia birds. The females had long curved bills, but the males had straight bills. They had a beautiful song and went extinct due to loss of habitat, hunting them for their white-tipped black tail feathers for fashion and for the Maori chefs to wear. And as that wasn't bad enough, the species was a ground nester too, so when cats, rats, stoats, weasels and Australian Possums were imported their nests and nestlings were easy prey.

These birds were at the Arts & Crafts center and I thought the tour would mention them but didn't. It was amazing to see the pair, like seeing a stuffed passenger pigeon or a dodo.

We were walked down to the thermal area to look at the geysers and thermals by daylight. We would return again after our feast.

On the walk back from the thermal area we visited the Kiwi exhibit where one of the most iconic New Zealand birds snuck around in the dark trying its little best to keep up from seeing it. I am dead set on coming back some day to see one of New Zealand's Kiwi species in the wild.


We had a second guide, who was also a Maori of New Zealand. She was also quite nice and I loved hearing the accent. She chose a young man in the group to be our 'chef' and then taught us how we were to behave because we were to enter a genuine Maori meeting house, and if it was done incorrectly in a manner that insulted the Maori of the meeting house, we wouldn't be allowed in.

A daytime peek inside the Maori meeting
house prior to the evening's presentation

Another video, this one 2 mins also. The roasted Hāngi is removed from the underground oven, or umu (pronounced 'emu'). The last bit is what our guide told us was necessary for us to enter the Maori meeting house.  She had a very pretty & interesting accent.


The Hāngi we attended was marvelous. The food was great, nothing too exotic, meaning no Kiwi on the menu. There was plenty of food, plenty of time to eat it and chat. I can't believe I was so into the feast that I took not one photo at the Hāngi. That doesn't happen v. often, does it?

Back to the Maori meeting house. Fun! There is a video of the dances and singing. This final video, shows a nice variety of the wonderful presentations that were performed for us. At one point they asked for volunteers to dance, using 'poi', two white balls, held together by a long string. They are rhythmically swung in time to the music. Women volunteers were recruited to come up on stage and dance with poi. My lack of skill did not stop me from volunteering!  Ila filmed a bit of me screwing up on stage, which isn't included here, but that's Ok, there are plenty of knowledgeable dancers here doing themselves proud.


After all the dancing, and all the feasting, a tram drove us back down to the thermals. Along the way Ila and I chatted with our tour buds, the Chilean ladies. Lots of fun chatting with them. When we got to the thermal area we were offered a nice cup of hot chocolate, and not a one of the four of us had any room for even a sip of cocoa. Honestly, had I drunk a cup, there would have been a pretty messy and spontaneous thermal explosion, I can tell you!

The walkway along the thermal
path - the geysers were lit up

The rocks that are sat are always warm, from the
thermal activity beneath them. Kind of relaxing

The thermals of Te Puia are one of the world's great thermal wonders, which includes Yellowstone National Park and Hawaii's magnificent Kilauea. Made me wildly happy to think I've been lucky enough to visit them all. And I haven't even been blown up as yet so that's lucky.