When my husband and I had an opportunity to visit New Zealand as an add-on to our Tahiti trip, we couldn’t wait.  We knew it was going to be a short trip, but we had one absolute: Hobbiton. 

The Shire

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you know this is an absolute MUST DO. 

If you are not a Lord of the Rings fan, first of all, what is wrong with you? Second of all, this tour is still a really cool experience.  Alexander Farms has done an amazing job with this tour.

A Little Background

Peter Jackson found the Alexander Farm on a fly over while looking for shooting location back in 1998.  The Alexander farm is a 1,250 acre sheep farm on the north island of New Zealand in the Waikato area.  Rolling hills and greenery, it’s just flat out gorgeous.  Upon entering the farm you can see why is was chosen as The Shire. 

It almost perfectly matches JRR Tolkien’s description of the Shire (minus the plum trees).

By 1999, the crew was onsite building what would become Hobbiton. This included bringing roads for production equipment and all the filming needs.

The building included 29 hobbit holes, set building, and miscellaneous needs to match the books descriptions.  Peter Jackson had a tremendous eye for detail. As it turns out, including creating the tree atop Bag Ends.

Production ceased, the site was mostly torn down. Tours began in 2002 with the rough remains of The Shire, with just the shells and facades remaining.

In 2009, back came the staff and crew to film The Hobbit series.  This time the Alexanders requested that structures be made permanent. A business venture for them was found in the tour business.

This included the addition of The Green Dragon Inn.

And So, The Jones Tour Begins

We were in Auckland, without a vehicle, so I selected a tour that included hotel pickup. 

Knowing that we had only this one chance with transportation, I booked a full day tour. The tour would also take us to see a bit of the country, including the glow worm caves. 

Cheeky Kiwi Travel was selected.  I mean, come on, Cheeky Kiwi, that name alone means it’s going to be good!

Pick up was at 6:30 am, which is early, but it was a 12-hour tour, and drive time meant sleep time on the tour bus! So don’t let this intimidate you if you are not an early riser.

The Joy of Letting Someone Else do the Driving

Our driver was awesome.  As we left Auckland, he shared some fun facts about New Zealand and the city of Auckland.

Just past the city limits, he stopped talking and gave us about an hour of quiet drive time to get a little snooze in or just enjoy the scenery.

An hour in we took a pit stop for some coffee and a little snack (the tour provided water as well).

And after 30 min we were back on the road and back to our driver sharing information about the land scape, towns we were passing through, and general New Zealand knowledge.

We love starting our first day of travel in new cities on information tours to learn about where we are visiting.

One left turn, and a windy road, seeing some weird looking deer and lots of sheep, and we arrived:  HOBBITON.

Hobbiton Tour, the Check-in

The tour is operated by the Alexander family, so you must check in at the café and gift shop, get your ticket and then board their tour bus for the ride out to The Shire. 

It’s a 2 hour tour, so use the restroom, get a snack if you need it, and then off you go on the bus.

The bus has a TV screen that shares with you a little about the farms history.  And I actually got goosebumps when the video opened with the Lord of the Rings musical score. 

It’s just a few minutes of a drive out to The Shire, through a twisty road lined by gorgeous green rolling hills (and fluffy white sheep).

The Shire Walkabout

I know, walkabout is more of an Aussie term than a Kiwi term, but that’s what it is:  A walking tour through The Shire.

And it’s like being there.

It’s all intact from the filming, the path they are riding down as they return from the Fellowship, the Party Tree, the field, the pond, the home of Sam and Rosie, and, naturally Bag End!

It was amazing. 

Your guide shares movie facts, trivia, and takes you through pertinent locations of scenes from the movies. 

It’s so hard not to geek out, even if you are just a casual fan.  It’s totally geek worthy. And beautiful. And all still in such great condition you would truly think that the Brandybucks and Tooks were just there the day before.

There is one Hobbit house open you can enter, but fair-warning, it’s really just a dirt cave behind a Hobbit hole door.  Not impressive, but I can at least tell you that I’ve been in a Hobbit Hole.

The walkabout takes you through The Shire, past Bag End, and finally through the field where Bilbo’s 111^th birthday party was held.

And finally the tour concludes at The Green Dragon Inn.

It Comes in Pints (just not at The Green Dragon)

Yes, The Green Dragon sells it’s own brew:  The Southfarthing Brewing Company is served at The Green Dragon, and has a stout, an amber, and a pale ale. 

But no, it’s doesn’t come in pints, half-pints only.  Although I do regret not buying the half-pint ceramic mugs, they do have them in the gift shop. The beer is good, and you get a free one included with your tour price.

The tours are staggered and scheduled, so you do only get a certain amount of time in the pub.  However, by the dragon bar that is stacked with props of food, you can actually don an apron and/or Hobbit vest, and there are tour guides that are always about to help you dress up and get pictures in costume. 

And the tavern is really well done, it’s beautiful with hand carved wood, stone and fireplaces.  I’d hang out here even if it wasn’t in Hobbiton.  It’s super cute and cozy.

And here’s where our Hobbiton adventure ends

The tour is over at the pub; however, when not part of a tour group, you can add on either “second breakfast” or an evening banquet to your tour.  These can be purchased if you are driving yourself to Hobbiton, and yes, that is an option for those who rent cars and are used to driving on the left side of the road to get yourself there.

The Cheeky Kiwi met us at the pub and we were off for the rest of our tour, which included the Waimato Glow Worm Caves, a stop for lunch, fantastic scenery and New Zealand facts, and a stop at a Big Bird farm where they have ostriches and emus; naturally, I was freaking out over the ostriches, they were an awesome addition to our day.

In closing, yes, I absolutely recommend this tour company, and you should not miss Hobbiton when on the North Island.  There are other Lord of the Rings filming locations you can visit, and we will definitely be hitting Mordor on our next trip, but those are hikes and not part of organized tours.

There are times where we do travel without a sister.  My husband, Pat, likes to do things just us (which I don’t get, lol), and Peggy has friends who want to travel places with her.

It’s weird, but it happens.

And we often times wish the other sister was there to share the view or the experience.

For me, Mo’orea was one of those times.

The planning of an epic husband-inclusive experience

One of our best friends turned 50 this year, and decided he wanted to go to Tahiti for his birthday. But then he discovered the island paradise of Mo’orea, and we went into planning mode.

Mo’orea is a volcanic island in French Polynesia. It is one of the Windward Islands, of the larger group Society Islands.

He rented a house for a week there.  Pat and I decided that a week was probably a little long in one place, given our need for exploration and adventure, so we booked a half week at Mo’orea, with a day on Tahiti on either side, and then the following week in Auckland, New Zealand (I mean, as long as we are traveling this far, perhaps we would be willing to go a little further).

This series starts with our first day on the island of Tahiti.

Arriving in Papeete

The major airport is Papeete International Airport. Papeete International Airport is located on the island of Tahiti. From the capital city of Papeete, you ferry eleven miles over to Mo’orea. 

Unfortunately, our flight landed at 6 pm, and the last ferry for the night is at 4:30.  We opted to rent our car at the Papeete Airport to have a car the entire stay. Only certain ferries allow you to take a car, the rest are pedestrian only.  Cars are much cheaper to rent in Papeete, you do pay extra to take the car on the ferry, so the price was almost a wash and we were happy to have the car prior to our arrival in Mo’orea.

We booked an economy hotel for the night, Hotel Sara Nui, which was very basic, but affordable, clean and had everything we needed as we went to bed almost immediately (time change was -3 hrs from our Pacific time zone). If you are looking to do Papeete on a budget, this is a reasonable choice, centrally located, and clean.

Our ferry reservations the next morning were not until 11:30 am (please note: if you want to bring a car on the ferry, you must make a reservation ahead of time and prepay online for it as spots are limited).

Given the lack of luxury of our accommodations, we were up and out early. We decided on the Urban Café for breakfast.  It was listed as being English friendly and we thought this was a great little break-in to being in a primarily French speaking country.

Urban Café Breakfast

We had a bit of trouble maneuvering the streets of Papeete.  The center lines aren’t yellow so we were thrown a couple of times trying to decipher whether some smaller side streets were one way or not, so we ended up circling the block a few times.

Then we struggled with parking, which we were confused about, the signs were in French and more pictorial, so there was a 2h green circle, a dollar sign, and what looked like a parking meter. . . but nobody was using the pay station, and when we tried it we couldn’t get it to take our card.  Thankfully, my husband was exhibiting an amazing amount of patience. So, we simploy moved the car and hoped for the best.

Off we walked, two blocks up, two blocks over, one block back to where we had overshot the blocks.

And the Urban Café was adorable. Indoor café feel, but we opted to sit out on the back patio.  Beautiful, lush greenery, a mango tree growing in the yard, picnic table, and luckily, plenty of shade.

They have fresh squeezed juices, and the food was fresh and beautiful.  Pat loved the eggs benedict, but realized too late that Pua’a Roti meant it came with roasted pork (the woman next to us had that and said it was amazing).

 I opted for the “Salted Pancake: Marvelous Pancake” which was flat out divine, pancakes layered with chicken, green onions, and some pickled onion on top, served with a side of a wonderful parmesan sauce and maple syrup.  It was sweet, it was savory, it was perfection in breakfast mode.

Another Blowhole

Because we had loved the Nakalele blowhole in Hawaii, we decided to kill some time before our ferry to take a drive to find the Arahoho Blowhole north of Papeete.

The drive reminded us so much of Maui, skirting the ocean the entire way up to the blowhole. It was beautiful, so many places to pull over and admire the view.

The pull in to the blowhole park is accessible only from the southbound lanes, so we needed to go up to turn around.

However, the next turnaround spot was also the road up to the Fa’arumai Waterfall.  And who are we to pass up the chance to hike a waterfall. 

It was listed as being a short hike and there were three waterfalls in the vicinity.  And we were sold on this pit stop

Fa’arumai Waterfall

We could see the waterfall from the road on our drive through this small private community leading up to the waterfall.  Imagine having that as your backyard?  It was amazing.

Park in the parking lot (duh), and then a short hike through a bamboo garden along the creek.  Over a foot bridge (it was steady and stable and well built, YAY!), and a slight incline walk about 5 minutes in and we were already there.

Fa’arumai Waterfall was breathtaking.

It felt very fantasy island-ish, crossed with Jurassic Park (before things got terrifying). This was very much like we walked into a lush valley, green and beautiful, with a huge (tall) waterfall dropping into a crystal clear pool that runs down a rocky creek.  So you get the calm peaceful flowing river in the background of the water tumbling down into the pool.  It was absolutely beautiful, and a fantastic introduction to the true beauty of Tahiti.

There are two more waterfalls if you veer off the trail to the north, but we were on a pretty tight schedule with our ferry reservation, so we just did the big one and headed back to find the blowhole.

Arahoho Blowhole near Papeete

As you pull off the main highway, there is a parking lot with bathrooms and a little souvenir stand.  Side note: this was one of the cleanest, prettiest bathrooms I have ever been in. 

The park sits right on the water, there is a great information board telling you about the legends of the area and the blowhole, a lovely picnic area, and then a trail walking up along the ocean. 

This blowhole was way different than Nakalele in that the water is actually forced up through a lava tube under the path and expels mostly sea air and mist on the inner side of the trail. 

So it didn’t have the great water shooting up like Nakalele, but it did have a huge WHOOSH sound that made you jump just a little like an air compressor going off. Then more of a sea spray shooting out of a cliff side.

It was cool, and very different from what we were expecting, but it was still interesting to experience.

Leaving Papeete – ferry to Mo’orea

We were so glad we took the time for this drive.  It gave us a little feel for the island, how the people live, and how gorgeous Tahiti really is. 

I am so excited to share all the pictures and all the amazing things we saw and did in French Polynesia.