Down Under Part 7...Frolicking through Hobbiton

I am not a big Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fan.  And by this I mean I slept through the last Hobbit movie...in the theater.  I mean I love Orlando Bloom and I like the overall message of The Lord of the Rings.  I think it's a great story, if we could just leave out 90% of the fighting that'd be great.  I mean the fighting could still happen, but maybe I don't have to watch it.  That being said, I loved this day.  Anyway Monday morning the 10th of November we got up at Erin's in Buckland Beach and headed for Hobbiton.  Like the actual Hobbiton. That's right, be jealous.

Totally driving on the right
side of the car!!

Our car was me, Caryn, and Bri.  I started out driving and we followed Sarah, Liz, and Kristina.  Once we were out driving for a bit we stopped to take some pictures at some pretty lookouts and then we stopped at a little diner type place in the middle of nowhere to get some food/drinks and such.  

Then we took one of the prettiest drives I think I've ever been on.  It was probably the long way to get to Hobbiton, but it was completely worth it.  It really set the mood for the whole day.  It was green rolling hills, big puffy clouds, and blue skies.  I took this opportunity to bust out the one song from Lord of the Rings I had on my iphone which I think was the main song and I put it on repeat until we got there.  The music with the drive was seriously unbelievable.  

Then we pull up to this sheep farm (cue the sheep jokes, i.e. I am in sheep, do you know sheep PR?, The sheeps they go baa they go baa they go baa baa baa etc.) and it's actually where we buy our tickets for Hobbiton.  So we buy our tickets and look around and take some pictures while we wait for our tour.  Once it's time for our tour we hop on a giant bus with a bunch of other people and head for the hills.  It wasn't a very long drive.  Like 5-10 minutes maybe.  

It was so neat when we got there.  I don't think I can fully explain it right.  You walk down this path and then all of a sudden you're standing at the bottom of a bunch of hills and there are tons and tons of hobbit holes everywhere that are little houses.  There are gardens and trees and all sorts of shenanigans. I probably have a picture with almost every hobbit house.  Bri and I had our picture taking down pat.  We would swap super fast to take pics so we didn't get in people's way too much...yet.  (I'll admit writing this right now almost 6 months later I'm looking at the beautiful pictures we all took and I'm almost crying because I loved it so much and want to be there again).  So we weren't actually allowed in the Hobbit holes because most of them there was nothing behind the doors since this was the outside set.  But there was one we could stand in and peek our heads out of.  Then we get to the main house...Bag End.  The tree above it is fake and apparently every dang leaf was hand painted.  I guess if you make the Lord of the Rings movies you're allowed to ask whatever you want of people who work for you and they do it.  

So me and Bri had previously discussed frolicking through Hobbiton.  We decided it would be best if it was filmed.  Bag End is at the top of a hill so I had Caryn film and play the LOTR song while me and Bri frolicked in Hobbiton down the little hill.  Some people's reactions were priceless.  It was totally worth it!  We took another opportunity to frolic around the May pole from the party field scene area.  That time we accidentally hit the May pole which had bells at the top so we had to run away fast so we didn't get caught.  Again, it was so amazing there.  I can't even describe the feeling I had standing there looking out at everything.

The last part of the Hobbiton tour was that you got to go to the Green Dragon Pub and get a drink.  Of the drinks two were alcoholic and one was not (the ginger beer).  So we all go up to the counter to order and I start to drink mine...twas not ginger beer, but instead was a delightful hard apple cider.  It was yum...but I behaved and gave it back and got my ginger beer.  Then we went over to order some treats from this cute bar tender dude.  He posed for my picture.  So we all sat there in the Green Dragon eating and drinking until someone discovered that even the bathrooms were themed and cool there.  Of course they were.

      

Once we were done we got back on the bus and headed out of Hobbiton.  We spent a little time in the gift shop getting a few people gifts and signing the guest book.  Then it was time to roll out.  We drove to Rotorua to our hotel.  We had almost a tiny apartment there.  It had an upstairs and downstairs and a few rooms.  After grabbing some good food at the nearby countdown (grocery store) we headed to the bus stop to be picked up for our Maori Village experience.  On the bus they explained the rules that when we first got there they would do this traditional chant thing and it was disrespectful to laugh.  I always worry when I'm told I can't laugh.  I mean if they wouldn't have brought it up I probably wouldn't have laughed anyway, but since they said I couldn't it made it kinda hard.  Me and Bri were not allowed to look at each other until they were done.  

We go into the village and go to different areas where they show us chants and games and the Hakka .  It was pretty interesting.  They then did a little luau.  But let's be honest.  I was there for the dinner.  It was delicious.  There was so much food and yummy lamb.  I really was surprised that the food was so different from a Hawaiian luau.  Still so good though.  On the bus ride home our crazy bus driver gave each group there a chance to sing a song.  We figured people already hate americans enough that we didn't need to give them an extra reason by singing God Bless America or something like that...so we sang Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.  Yeah, that happened.  Then this guy decides he's going to sing She'll be coming around the Mountain while driving so so so many times around the round about.  I believe Sarah later told me she heard me say, "This is my own personal hell".  But we made it back to our hotel and we all quickly went to bed.  We had had a long amazing day.  And we had more to do the next day.