In the April school holidays, I went to Hobbiton.
It was awful! I feel sad just thinking about it.
Then I feel bad for feeling sad.
Let me explain….
We grew up on Tolkien. Our mother read us The Lord of the Rings as we sat beside the fire in our pajamas. And when the movies came out, it was like Peter Jackson had channelled the film from my own imagination.
So when I finally had the chance to go to Hobbiton, it was pretty exciting. We caught a bus from the Matamata Visitors Centre, gliding past sloping hills and lush paddocks with fluffy white sheep to Hobbiton HQ, where the bus parked and the driver told us to stay put.
We waited. And waited. It was a windy day, rain speckled the bus windows. Half an hour went past. Outside we could see the hustle and bustle of HQ. The windows were starting to steam up. What was taking so long?
At long last our driver clambered onboard and gave us the bad news: it was too windy for the tour to go ahead. Health and safety blah blah blah, yada yada yada, tour cancelled. We’d be given a full refund. The whole bus groaned. But there was nothing to be done.
That was three years ago, so when the opportunity to go again came up I was very excited. We were staying in Raglan but had a rental car and Matamata wasn’t far way, maybe an hour and twenty minutes’ drive.
We were in a bit of a rush and I committed the cardinal sin of sightseeing: forgetting to plug my phone in the night before. And yet – an oasis in the desert – USB ports in vehicles! What will they think of next. I put it on the car charger and sat back, mind at peace.
We raced in the door at Hobbiton HQ just before the 11.45am cut-off (you can tell our time management skills leave something to be desired).
It was a beautiful autumn day, not a hint of a breeze. We clambered aboard the tour bus and set off through the green rolling hills, all the way to ground zero: the gateway to Hobbiton itself, where our guide gave us a quick run-down on how the tour would go.
