Weird & wonderful TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
Hobbiton
Back in 1998, Peter Jackson’s team of location scouts was scouring New Zealand for the perfect spots to film the trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Jackson had given them a very specific brief for the location of The Shire: in order to stay true to JRR Tolkien’s description, they needed ‘unspoilt green pastures, a rising hill and a magnificent pine tree by a lake’. Flying over Matamata on North Island, they found a place that ticked all those boxes: Alexander Farm, a 505-hectare working sheep and cattle farm.
The owner, having heard neither of Jackson nor The Lord of the Rings, told them to come back later when the rugby was over. At the time he had no idea what he was in for – or that his farm would one day become apopular tourist destination.
A temporary set made of plywood and polystyrene was built in 1999 and demolished after three months of filming. But following the huge success of the trilogy, The Hobbit was greenlit – so the crew returned to the farm in 2010 to rebuild Hobbiton from scratch. This time they built permanent structures using concrete, wood and bricks: 44 Hobbit holes over 4,8hectares.
Some of the doors are large enough to make the actors seem Hobbit-sized, whereas others
