“THERE are lots of gates to close in this farm, ‘yair’,” hollers the attractive pony-tailed brunette clad in a blue and grey parka, mud-spattered sneakers on her feet, gingerly shutting yet another wooden gate before striding over to where my friend and I are seated in the comfort of the dark green van with the words “Hobbiton Movie Set” emblazoned along its body. Outside, the sky is a canvas of grey, the sombre clouds pierced by a persistent drizzle.
Chuckling, Maya Storey, the sales and events coordinator at the Hobbiton Movie Set, the Tolkien tourism destination that’s one of the top tourist attractions in New Zealand, hoists herself back into the driver’s seat and continues with the scenic drive towards the Visitors Centre, from where we’re to begin our tour.
The 12-acre movie set, located in the bucolic setting of a rolling beef and sheep farm belonging to the Alexander family, just outside the small Waikato town of Matamata, was constructed for the hugely popular Peter Jackson-directed films, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit trilogies.
As the van swerves into the visitors’ parking lot, its tyres crunching over loose gravel, my heart pounds at the thought that soon, my dream of clapping eyes on the magical home of the Hobbits would finally be realised.
“The Alexanders have owned this farm since 1978,” the sound of Maya’s voice slices into my reverie as we make our trek to the set on this rather moody New Zealand morning. To be honest, she’d lost me the moment a Hobbit hole with a bright blue door, its compound lined with flowering hedges, came into my periphery. Good-naturedly, Maya chuckles at the realisation, recognising the futility of her efforts at trying to offer any kind of information at that moment, as I squeal like a child for a photo to be taken.
The Shire, as Hobbiton’s also known, with 44 hobbit holes dug into various parts of the hillside, framed exquisitely by hobbit gardens and orchards, against a canvas of gently rolling hills, brings Jackson’s movie to life in all its colourful glory.
FROM FARM LAND TO FILM FAME
The story of how a humble 1,250 hectare farm, with 13,000 Romney sheep and 500 Angus cows roaming its fertile pasture became the object of film director Sir Peter Jackon’s desire is the stuff that fairytales are made of. Google Hobbiton and there’s plenty of information that details how the Alexander farm landed itself its film fame.
Having repeated the background story to visitors in her charge many times over, Maya patiently rolls out the info again, chuckling each time we stop her in midsentence for more photo ops.
“Look around and you’ll get a good idea why they chose this place for the filming of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy — the rolling green hills, scattered tree lines. There’s also a big mountain range in the background but you can’t quite see it today because of the fog,” shares Maya, her voice rising in volume, trying to drown out the excited cacophony emanating from an advancing group of tourists.
It seems that when the location scout spotted the property, they subsequently hired a plane and flew over it. They were on the look-out for two key things— a lake and a big tree. Pointing to the picture-perfect scenery just below us, Maya says: “There, that’s the man-made lake with a big grand tree in front of it which fans will know as the Party Tree, where Bilbo Baggins celebrated his 111st birthday. The 80 metre tree is the centre piece of the Party Field and a gathering site for all the Shire, a place where Hobbits celebrate festivals and birthdays.”
The location scouts obviously knew they’d found the perfect location and immediately placed a call to Jackson. In the meantime, shares Maya, they made their acquaintance with the patriarch of the Alexander family, Ian. She recounts the story: “It was a Saturday afternoon when they came knocking at Ian Alexander’s door. They kept on knocking and eventually Ian answered the door. He took so long because he was watching an All Blacks rugby game! They introduced themselves and requested to see the property.”
Chuckling at the recollection, Maya continues: “Ian said that there was no way he was missing the rugby but he was alright with them going out there and seeing his farm. ‘Just make sure you shut all the gates behind you’ he told them. The family never thought too much about it until six weeks later when one of the location scouts rang and said that the art director, visual artist and representatives from New Line Cinemas wanted to come down and have a look too.”
And the rest as they say, is history.
REAL LIFE
The impact of that day 18 years ago is certainly not lost on the affable Russell Alexander, on whose shoulders the Hobbiton Movie set and all business related to it rest. As general manager of Hobbiton Movie Set Tours and the unofficial “lord of the shire”, he runs the tourism side of the business, while his elder brother, Craig, continues to run the sheep farming side of their set-up. The youngest runs a dairy operations down in South Island.
His cheerful visage flushes red as he excitedly recalls their family story during a wonderful Hobbit-style lunch at the rustic Green Dragon Inn, a working pub and one of the newest additions to Hobbiton. “The farm was purchased in 1978 by my dad and his brother and was originally about 814 acres. They formed a partnership. In 1978 I was 10. I effectively grew up here in the homestead at the front. By 1981, they’d added more to the original land and the farm grew. Today, it’s about 1,250 acres.”
Incidentally, the Hobbiton Movie set itself only occupies about 1 per cent of the whole farm —about 12 acres. Tearing into a piece of crusty bread roll, Russell continues: “My father has always been a sheep farmer. He fell in love with this place because he liked the rolling countryside and its proximity to many central places like Rotorua, Hamilton and Auckland. The land has a beautiful contour and a lot of character. But at the beginning, it was a pretty run down farm but they managed to turn it into a nice one.”
Asked on what his now semi-retired 75-year-old father thinks of the farm’s superstar status, Russell laughs heartily before replying: “He comes down here often but I don’t think he quite gets what’s going on here! He can’t understand it. Still! He’s a traditional farmer and all this isn’t his thing. So he leaves me to it.”
With his background in accounting, the role of running the tourism part of the business fell naturally to Russell. And he was the first member of the family to be approached by the location scouts when they wanted to discuss tourism potentials when the movie became a success.
Chuckling, he confides: “To be honest, I didn’t know much about the tourism business to begin with. The first meeting I ever had was with the people at the local regional tourism office and I was pretty ignorant! Then I had another meeting the next day and I had to get them to explain what all these tourism jargons meant. I didn’t even know what an inbound was. I had to learn from scratch. In some ways it was a good thing. In learning, I believed that no question was too silly.”
Looking thoughtful, the father of three sons confides that he, or indeed the family, never envisioned that the whole thing would grow so big. “But you evolve and grow with it. At the start, you don’t think so much about it but every year when you see it growing, you end up doing a bit more and you suddenly have vision of growth and then things just get bigger and bigger. It has certainly been an interesting ride.”
The family, says Russell, continue to operate the farm as they’ve always done 20 to 30 years ago. “There’s one paddock where Hobbiton is so we don’t go there,” he shares, before adding that director Peter Jackson owns 50 per cent of Hobbiton, while the other 50 per cent belongs to the family. Russell is employed to manage the set-up.
THE FUTURE
“There’s no limit where you can take it,” says Russell, his voice confident. “It’ll just keep evolving but you have to stay true to the principles of being authentic and to the value of the brand. We want to be true to what this place should look like and the movie depiction of it, so we have no plans to be building theme hotels or anything. That’s just not New Zealand and not our culture. It’s all about knowing what you want to be.”
Can Hobbiton continue with its present success, say, in the future, with a new generation that might not be familiar with the movie, I muse aloud to the self-confessed entrepreneur.
He ponders the question, before conceding: “That’s certainly one of our challenges. But just think of the 1965 film, The Sound of Music. It’s an old movie but people still go to the location where Julie Andrews sang. The movie has become so synonymous with Salzburg. And I think this can be a legacy for New Zealand because LOTR is huge.”
Continuing excitedly, the rugby-loving dad says: “We’ve worked with Tourism New Zealand to encapsulate the Middle Earth brand. I don’t see this stopping as a tourist attraction. I’d like to think that we’ve built enough when we mix storytelling with a tour and with education so even if you haven’t seen LOTR or The Hobbit, your appreciation of what’s involved in making a major movie would be enough. If we stay true to our values and vision, I’m sure it can continue for another 50 years.”
The writer’s trip was made possible with the assistance of Tourism New Zealand.
Details at www.hobbitontours.com