Drove to the visitor centre in Matamata to get the tour of the farm where Hobbiton was filmed in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The location was found by an aerial search; they were looking for a lake with a pine tree next to it. They asked the farmer if they could use his land to make a film; he agreed and once he signed the contract they told him it would be used for Lord of the Rings. The setting is beautiful; very quiet and peaceful (except for the sheep!). The New Zealand Army was contracted to build a 1.5km road into the site and the set took nine months to build. Everyone who set foot on the set had to sign a contract saying they wouldn't say anything about what they had seen or what was going on there; they couldn't say anything for three years as Hobbiton features at the end of Return of the King.

At the end of filming the set was to be destroyed. They got half way through when it started raining, then it kept on raining and was too dangerous to finish. So they planned to come back later. But in the mean time, people kept asking the farmer if they could see the set; eventually there seemed to be enough interest and after contract negotiations the tours of Hobbiton started.

One of the centre pieces of the set is the pine tree, known as the Party Tree, under which Bilbo's 111th birthday is held. In front of the Party Tree is the Party Field; we danced on the Party Field and we've got a picture of us doing the 'Hobbit-hop' there. We saw (what's left of) Bag End and some of the other Hobbit holes. Also saw the remains of the oak tree that stood on top of Bag End. They cut down an oak tree from elsewhere, transported it to the farm, then put it back together and wired 250,000 fake leaves on to the tree. All that, and it only appears on screen for 11 seconds. But it's mentioned in the book so Peter Jackson, the director, insisted it be done so as to be as near to the book as possible. Incidentally the film company rented a house for Mr Jackson just down the road from the farm for the duration of filming; the owners got an all expenses paid four-month trip to anywhere in the world (not bad!).

A great tour and our guides (J.R. and Jelly) were fantastic. Back at the visitor centre we bought two bottles of the beer that had been brewed for the actors on set; the beer was only 1 per cent (presumably so they wouldn't get too lary) and was called "SobeRing Thought"...

From Matamata we headed towards Rotorua, stopping briefly at Tirau, a town that seems to love corrugated iron. The visitor centre is housed in a giant corrugated iron dog, with the gift shop housed in a giant corrugated iron sheep next door. Numerous signs around the town are done in corrugated iron as well. Whilst there we also drove up to the Castle. Seems the wife had a huge toy and doll collection and the husband wanted to build his wife a castle to house them all in. Interesting place; 'properly' castle shaped (weird considering most if not all British castles are in ruins). Undoubtedly a nice view from the top, but we just used the toilets then ran away.