Matamata

Day 1: Our new driver, Bods, picked us up that morning and we set off towards Auckland - New Zealand's largest city.

On the way, he told us we would be taking a lunch break at a small town called Matamata. This wasn't somewhere I'd heard of and I had no intention of staying there. That is, until Bods told us this was the place from where we would access Hobbiton - The Hobbit village from the films. Being a huge Lord of the Rings fan myself (in case you hadn't guessed), I was well up for going there so I decided to hop off the Kiwi Bus for the afternoon and pay it a visit.

Along Matamata's main street, there is also a sculpture of Gollum, which we all got our pictures taken by (despite the fact it looks nothing like him). Early afternoon, the bus then came into town to take us up to Hobbiton.

The guide, Carolyn, was really good and gave us all the information about how and why this site was chosen by Peter Jackson and where they stationed themselves during filming. Basically, the farm owner and his family were given an all-expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world they wanted for 3 months, thus allowing Jackson and some others to live in their house. Not a bad deal eh!

The tour took a few hours and was fantastic. It allowed us to see all the Hobbit-Holes, including those inhabited by Samwise Gamgee and Bilbo Baggins in the films. She also showed us some other key areas, where famous scenes have taken place and we also got a glimpse of some other buildings that are to be used in the upcoming ''The Hobbit'' films. Sadly, we couldn't visit these as they weren't completed yet but they look even more impressive.

After the tour, we got our bus transfer back into Matamata, where I then had to catch another bus to take me up to Auckland. A really cool tour that was well worth jumping off the bus for. It's not every day you get to visit a film set as famous as that.