Visiting Matamata, Hobbiton in New Zealand
On the North Island of New Zealand , halfway between the cosmopolitan city of Auckland and the immense waters of Lake Taupo, is one of those magical places that take you to an unreal world. Almost two decades ago Matamata ceased to be such, to become Hobbiton , one of the main enclaves of the novels of the great J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Y The Lord of the rings .
Just over four decades ago, a teenage Peter Jackson - equal parts New Zealander and dreamer - decided to tour his country by train. Helplessly glued to one of the windows of his car, he was amazed at the beauty that he treasured Aotearoa , which is what the native Maoris call New Zealand.
The mountains of the Southern Alps, one of New Zealand's spectacular landscapes
Jackson was overwhelmed by the spectacular diversity of landscapes which he went through. The imposing mountains of the southern alps, the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers , dense tropical forests, whitewater rivers, lands consumed by incandescent volcanoes, caves illuminated by insects of light and immense lakes whose waters acted as a mirror of such impressive beauty.
Lover of novels and the world created by Tolkien, Peter Jackson he dreamed of becoming a film director so he could bring the adventures of Middle-earth to the big screen. The story had already been conceived by the South African writer. The filming set was before his very eyes. For him, New Zealand was his Middle Earth.
For those things that destiny and hard work have, Jackson got his dream and they say that he burst into tears of emotion when the production company New Line Cinema asked him to direct the three films of the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings.
In the phase of choosing the locations, one of them resisted him: Hobbiton.
To faithfully represent the peaceful home where the small - but incredibly hardy - hobbits lived, Jackson was looking for a land of soft hills and completely upholstered in green . At first, he looked for them in the United Kingdom, but the excessive infrastructure of the British Isles made him give up. he needed something more natural and isolated.
Gentle hill lands in New Zealand
back in his New Zealand native, he rented a small plane and toured large areas of the North Island. That was how he found a farm owned by the Alexanders family. It was perfect, and after hard work creating up to 37 holes – or houses – hobbits, stables, a tavern and many other things, finally it became the Hobbiton that Tolkien would have dreamed of.
After finishing the filming of the films, the contract with the production company established that all the elaborate filming sets had to be destroyed. That was how, in a couple of weeks, 14 of the hobbit dwellings disappeared. However, heavy rains forced work to stop for weeks.
During that time it premiered The Fellowship of the Ring – the first film in the trilogy – in all cinemas, with some New Zealanders gasping at the screen: "That's the Alexanders' farm!".
That was how people began to arrive Kill Kill to see the place where one of the most successful fantasy novels of the 20th century begins.
Matamata became the Hobbiton Tolkien would have dreamed of
The Alexanders saw the possibility of doing business and reached an agreement with New Line Cinema to be able to exploit it. And that was how Hobbiton was saved from demolition.
When I arrived in Matamata from Lake Taupo, a statue of Gollum welcomed me. It was the spring of 2011 and Jackson was about to start filming another new trilogy: The Hobbit . Therefore, Hobbiton had been completely rebuilt and showed the best clothes of him.
Matamata is a small town with less than 8,000 inhabitants in which people live by raising and training horses and farming. Or lived. Today, although both activities continue to be the engine of its economy, tourism has also gained weight. And it is that all the city is overwhelmed with Hobbiton.
Tickets for a tour of Hobbiton are purchased in a small wooden house where multiple Lord of the Rings souvenirs are sold. From there, we set off on a bus to the Alexanders' farm.
The whole city is overwhelmed with Hobbiton
We leave the urban core and begin to pass through vast green meadows , dotted, here and there, by a few groups of perfectly aligned trees.
As we approach the farm, we begin to make out some gently rolling hills perfectly upholstered in green. Already at our destination, an enthusiastic middle-aged woman told us that we were about to enter a magical world , but before we had to sign an important confidentiality agreement. Filming on the Hobbit movies would start in a few weeks, and we couldn't post anything anywhere until the last of the movies was released in theaters.
After signing obediently, we enter middle earth.
welcome to middle earth
For a Tolkien enthusiast – like me – this tour is an unforgettable experience . Dozens of hobbit holes spread across the hills around us. Pots of colorful flowers adorned window sills, and farm implements leaned against the walls of sheds or the side of carts.
Rising above all the others, it was the hill of Bag End, crowned by the house of Bilbo and Frodo . In front of her, the mythical tree under which Bilbo delivers his birthday speech at the opening of the trilogy cast a sweet shadow on that sunny day.
Everything was so perfect and real, that it seemed that at any moment good old Gandalf was going to appear driving a cart full of fireworks, ready to delight his dear hobbit friends on the night of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday.
On the other side of a narrow river, the famous Green Dragon tavern , where the festive hobbits drank their mugs of ale and mead.
One of the houses they built for 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit'
Going through the narrow paths drawn between the hills, we arrived at Sam's house - Frodo's faithful friend until the end - another of the places where everyone wanted to take a picture. The morning was clear and cool and in the distance you could see how a large flock of sheep grazed peacefully, oblivious to the tumult of tourists.
The farm continues to function as such and it also explains what the day-to-day life of its industrious workers is like. Among their activities, they must shear sheep. And it is that New Zealand wool is one of the most precious in the southern hemisphere.
Back to Tolkien's stage, our guide was explaining curiosities of the filming Like the fact that the birthday tree was not natural but had been made, leaf by leaf and branch by branch, in a workshop in Malaysia. It did not matter, none of that was of this world, but of another in which epic fantasy took over everything . A world to dream of.
A place where epic fantasy takes over everything