Spirit of the Antipodes Day 3

 Again, I woke 5 minutes before the alarm. I’m not sure why I bother to set one on my phone when my body clock seems to have an inbuilt alarm system. This time it was 05:40 and we needed to be at the bus stop over the road in plenty of time for a 6:45 pick up, because today we were going to Hobbiton. 

As someone who had read the Hobbit way back when I was 14 or 15 years old, and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy when the films were released in the early 2000s, I was excited. As someone who is not familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, Wallsy was probably less so, but he happily came along for the ride. 

The coach collected us right at the appointed time and our Great Sights tour began. We soon had all 40 passengers on board and were heading out of Auckland, the driver assuring us, that despite the forecast rain, the day was going to be fine. 

He talked continuously, some of it interesting, much of it neither relevant nor captivating, so much so that Wallsy popped his ear buds in and found a podcast to listen to. 

We arrived at the Alexander farm by 9:30, had a quick browse of the gift shop and then changed buses for the Hobbiton tour bus that took us down to the film set.


 Soon, instead of sheep, we were gazing at an array of Hobbit holes set in the rolling green hills, complete with different coloured and sized doors, beautiful gardens, and an array of props to provide context for the characters to whom each residence belonged. It was like stepping into a story book. 







Unfortunately, the rain that the coach driver said wouldn’t come, arrived with us and stayed for the duration of the tour, making umbrellas and raincoats a necessity. But we enjoyed wandering the site and hearing about the filming tricks and devices used to make real adults appear either Hobbit sized, or in the case of Gandalf, larger than life. 








The pièce de résistance was the complete 9-room Hobbit house that we could wander through. It was incredibly well done with amazing detail. From there we were led to the Green Dragon Inn for a complementary ale or cider before a buffet lunch in the party marquee!  



All in all a fantastic experience, and we were dropped back opposite our hotel by 3:30pm after a much quieter trip home, many passengers dozing and the driver taking his cue and remaining silent for the most part. 

Back home, we sorted some washing in order to make use of the guest laundry, but while waiting for the washing to wash, Wallsy came across an advertisement for Jesus Christ Superstar which was showing just up the road at the Civic Theatre. We abandoned the drying of the washing as the dryer wouldn’t work for us, so we strung it up around the room instead, quickly changed into theatre-going clothes and after some rapid research on dinner venue options in the environs of the theatre, set off up the Queen Street hill to Father Ted’s Original Irish pub. Here we enjoyed a delicious Margherita pizza then took a walk up another hill and around Albert Park before wandering back down to the Civic in time for an icecream before the show. 


I had never seen Jesus Christ Superstar before, although many of the iconic songs were familiar to me. This was a modern production and brilliantly done. A great way to cap off a wonderful day. 


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