It’s a dangerous business Frodo, going out your front door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you may end up
Some places, it’s never a question if you’re going back…
They nearly tore down the Hobbiton movie set; it was only a freak storm that saved it from the destruction that traditionally comes at the end of filming. In the intervening time before the weather cleared, the owner of the land that it was situated upon started running tours of his own, and so a Lord of the Rings pilgrimage site like no other was born.
I was at Hobbiton in 2013 for the first time, and much of it I do remember, but an equal amount I had forgotten; and more than that, I am still astonished by the sheer level of loving detail in the place. Somewhere like this, it couldn’t have been made by just anyone; I can’t imagine that Peter Jackson was easy to work with (more on that in a minute) but the man was – and is – a genius.
The only reason the location scouts even found the site for the set was because of one specific tree. Hundreds of years old it stands with vast spreading branches in the middle of a vacant field – throwing it’s huge shadow over the shire. The tour guide didn’t give us as much detail this time around, but I remember what the last one who walked us up to that trunk said:
That tree, that’s the only reason they found this farm. They were doing an areal fly by for something else entirely, and basically someone saw that tree and said “Land the plane, THAT is the party tree”, and so they landed the plane, and realized that they couldn’t see another sign of humanity for acres…and basically said “find out who owns this farm…because we just found the Shire.”
And the Shire it is. Down to the last flower and the last brightly coloured door.
I think my favourite story of the day is of the tree over Bag End. I knew some of it, but as it turns out I definitely didn’t know all of it.
The original books clearly state that there is a tree growing atop Bag End – home of one Bilbo Baggins – and therefore there was no question that there had to be a tree above Bag End in the movies. But there wasn’t one. So they found a tree elsewhere that matched what they wanted, cut it into sections and reassembled it – leaves included – where they wanted it. Problem solved. But that tree only lasted for the filming of the first three movies, obviously the tree was dead seeing as how it had been chopped up and put back together; and after sitting there for a while it was starting to look dead. So when filming was due to begin for the Hobbit trilogy the set designers were faced with a new multilayered problem: the old tree was dead, but it wasn’t just that, they needed to have a tree that looked like the old tree only younger, because the Hobbit movies take place prior to the original film trilogy in the overall story line.
So the set people did what set people do: they built one. Built a tree out of concrete and steel and handpainted leaves
That much I knew. I didn’t know the rest of the story about those leaves. Apparently they had finished painting basically the last leaf, and were standing back to look at their finished work (there were three set dressers whose life was “the tree”) when Peter Jackson came to look at it, and said he didn’t like it…that something was off…that – and I’m serious here – the leaves were the wrong shade of green. Nope, not even kidding a little tiny bit, leaves were two shades too dark, so they had to repaint every single one.
Can you imagine the conversations at home when those three set dressers got back from work that day?
This place remains like no other place I have been. There is a peace here despite all the people crowding through on a daily basis. For a moment, just a little one, you can believe that there are hobbits behind those doors, and that perhaps your loud laughter has just startled them a bit, and hopefully not put them too much off their tea before their next adventure.
There are 44 hobbit holes in total, a large percentage of which never appeared in the movies. The idea was that you could shoot anywhere in the area and still be
Once our tour was done – and there is no way that two hours is enough, you could spend the entire day here and it wouldn’t be enough – we stopped for a pint at the Green Dragon! And the ginger beer I had there was so good, that I bought a giant bottle of it so that Amras and I could have it on the ship. I don’t normally like ginger beer, and this stuff was very very yummy. Also, non-alcoholic, which is a good thing since I hate having anything “real” before work. Naturally, the one type of ginger beer I fall in love with is completely exclusive to a movie set in New Zealand.
I should have bought an extra bottle…
Damn…
Still munching on scones and melt-in-your-mouth muffins, we made our way to the newly established souvenior shop. Oh…ever so dangerous. I’m lucky I walked away with as little as I did. But the things I did get I am pretty sure are not super common elsewhere, and I try and get at least something from each cool place I visit. So when I finally build my travel shrine at home, the place of pride at the top will be held by a little minature hobbit hole.
Trinket shopping aside…
For me, there is also an element of acting pilgrimage involved to this place; although I didn’t think of it much while I was actually there, the knowledge that I was walking where not that long ago people like Sir Ian McKellan walked is a pretty amazing thing for me.
And all of this amazing escaping beauty is fit into only a tiny corner of a massive farm (it takes up a grant total of 1% of the space) in the rolling hills of New Zealand.
Some adventures you have to see to believe. Sometimes more than once.