Hobbiton !

You might ask : "Hobbiton on a golf and fishing trip??!"

Well, if you are visiting New Zealand to come fishing or to play golf, you will no doubt end up in Taupo, where we have two world class golf courses in Wairakei Sanctuary and The Kinloch Club. Also, for the fishing enthusiasts we offer some of the finest trout fishing in the world around the Taupo region (think Tongariro River as well as many other rivers that flow into the famous lake).

So, on the way to Taupo from Auckland (a 3 hour drive approximately), at exactly the half way point, you will have the opportunity to visit Hobbiton. For most people the story ends here, so why would I suggest it ?

I visited it recently. And I don't particularly have an interest in movie sets - yet, I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies. I would never have chosen to go along to see the place, but on this occasion I was dragged along by my daughter who made the special request to visit Hobbiton for her birthday. Who is dad to refuse his daughter such a wish ?! Bad dad of the year is not on my agenda !

So, on making the journey, I endured the 2 hour guided tour, and I must say I did not want to leave at the end of it....What an amazingly pleasant surprise it turned out to be.

It is important to realise that this is not your standard movie set. This is a whole new world that has been created in a real life "Bag End." Real wood, clay, grass, trees, bricks, stones, thatch etc and quite frankly I was transported into another world where I really could imagine being a small hobbit living in this magical, fantastical little place. For a two hour period I was transported into a child again, and could let my imagination run wild....

And when I was next on the river only one week later, casting for a wily old trout I had been after for a while, I could of sworn that for a brief moment, that out the corner of my eye, that there sat a hobbit, sitting on a tree stump on the opposite bank, lighting up his pipe and tapping his feet to the heart beat of the river.....now my imagination has really got away from me, but there is no other place I'd rather be !