Hobbiton January 15
Monday, May 21st, Late Morning
Our first real destination in New Zealand, Hobbiton was well worth the time. Apparently while out looking for a location to shoot this part of the films the crew was flying over some of the farmland and got a glimpse of this farm. Once they had landed and checked it out by land, they knew that they had the right spot. Green, rolling hills, trees, and most importantly, from the set you could not see a single man made dwelling. The producers got the army to come in and build a road to the site and they proceeded to start building Hobbiton. When they were done they started to dismantle it like they did with every other set in the country, but the farmers asked if they could leave what remained in order to give tours, which is what we went on.
This was the first stop on the tour, we had not gotten to the movie set at this point. This was one of the staging areas for the cast and crew and animals. They had a number of areas like this around here and had many many people working on the location while they were filming here.
Here is a view of the countryside around the set. It was very pretty and looked like a postcard
A shot looking up towards the van that we used to get here. Since we were on a working sheep farm and they no longer kept the sheep from the movie set area, you really had to watch where you put your feet.
Down among those trees is the set. We could not see any of the construction at this point.
A view to the left of the sign.
A view over the farmland. The white specs are, of course, sheep.
By this time a second van had caught up to us and we combined the tour into one group. Then we all piled in to drive down to the set.
This is the parking area right below the movie set and our first real view of it.
A zoomed in view. The warning sign here says to watch out for rabbit holes, watch out for uneven ground and slippery slopes and to no climb above the hobbit holes as they were lible to collapse.
This branch was apparently in the film.
From down here you can really see why they liked this location, no human structures anywhere within eyesight. Also here was where they had a number of other hobbit holes for some of the approach shots in the movies.
The sign welcoming us to the movie set.
And me by the sign.
That is the party tree.
These were our guides, very nice people and a lot of fun to talk to. There were signposts all over showing pictures from the movies and from the locations while they were in production.
Before going up to the hobbit holes we walked around the lower area near the party tree first.
The white string was actually one of the streamers in the party scene from the movie.
Here is the lake in the scenes. They put the villiage right on the other side of the lake.
If you look close at the picture, you can see the dark shapes that were the buildings for the villiage.
There are 4 stakes in this picture that show where the villiage was.
In the top left picture you can see the bridge in a picture taken from behind the set. Its hard to make out, but the bridge is actually wood and not that sturdy. In the movie it was covered with foam blocks made to look like stone. Peter Jackson actually used so much of this foam in the movies that he bought the company that made it before shooting. Apparently one day the farmer, not realizing that the bridge was not made for it, drove down and across the bridge. He was yelled at but no damage was done. The top right picture shows the mill. This was made off site and brought in as one piece on a flatbed truck. The bottom two pictures show the villiage. The bottom right has frodo in the center of the picture and Peter Jackson is in the bottom left picture.
A closeup of the villiage signpost.
This next signpost shows what the hobbit hole looked like during filming. This was the location for the very last scene in the movies.
This is the hillside where the hobbit hole was. It was one of the holes dismantled before the family requested that they stop taking them down.
Now we started heading up towards the remaining holes.
This si what they looked like. A retaining wall with an outer front put over it. A number of times in the movies you see hobbits going in or out of the holes, well there was not a lot of room behind the door.
Looking up towards bag end.
This was the only hobbit hole with an attached chimney. All of the otehrs had temporary chimneys placed to come out of the grass above the hole.
This front was actually poured concrete
Finally we got to the top and went in Frodos hobbit hole. This was the only one with space inside because they actually did filming from inside looking out when Gandalf arrives in the first movie.
The view from inside the hole. Since the tours began, they have enlarged the space here a little and shored up the walls.
This is looking down the front steps outside of the hole.
Looking over the party field and party tree.
This was the side window where Gandalf caught Sam listening in to their conversation.
Kyle and I by the hobbit hole.
Here is a signpost of what it looked like during filming.
The retaining wall here was there during filming, it was just covered with the ’stones’ made of foam block to look like a stone wall.
Here is a signpost showing the part field as they were setting upf or the party.
Another signpost showing one of the hobbit holes and the villiage.
Another retaining wall
Kyle walking down the path.
A view looking down into the hollow where a number of the holes were.
A view from the bottom of the hollow looking back up.
One last picture as we were leaving.