Hobbiton Village - movie set from The Lord of the Rings trilogy - Matamata

Hobbiton was around half an hour away, so we gobbled down our lunch and got on our tour bus to The Shire. Unfortunately you can’t just rock up and have a wander round – you have to take a tour. 

I’m not sure whether it meant a great deal to the boys as they’ve not seen the film yet and to be honest I’ve not yet made it through a film yet as they seem to flick my sleep switch on, but it was still fun walking round all the little hobbit holes, and learning about the massive scale of the project and the lengths and expense they go through to get the right clip.

Hobbiton Pub quiz facts…

• The massive tree above Frodo’s hobbit hole in in fact fake, they had to chop down the real one as the oak tree would have been smaller in the prequel.

• The film set was actually going to be dismantled and the land returned back to it’s former being once the filming had stopped, however the weather was so awful due to rain, the film makers asked for 6 months grace. However during that time the farmer was inundated with people interested in viewing the set, so cha ching, the farmer saw dollar signs and requested that the film set remain as it is and started the Hobbiton tours.

• The film set used children dressed up as the characters to make the hobbit holes life-size (as the boys were asked to demonstrate).

• The sun set scene in the film is actually a sun rise reversed.

Hobbit holes, party trees and mini smoking chimneys protruding from the land aside, the bit that we all loved was the trip at the end to the Green Dragon Inn, where Dan got to take his little men to the pub for a quick pints. The boys felt all smug and grown up with their first ever pint - even though it was ginger beer!

A glimpse into the future... forward on 10 years!