Matamata - Hobbiton, "The Shire". A voyage to Matamata, New Zealand, Pacific.

 

Not as well-heeled as Cambridge but just as horsey, Matamata was one of those pleasant country towns you drove through until Peter Jackson’s epic film trilogy Lord of the Rings put it on the map. The residents seem to have adjusted to life in Hobbiton with wry ­bemusement: ‘Strewth mate, all that elf nonsense doesn’t real- ly rattle my chains but it was nice to see the old Kaimais on the silver screen’.

During the filming Matamata was a great place to live if you were short and chubby-cheeked – 300 locals got work as extras (hairy feet weren’t a prerequisite).
Truth be told, there’s not a lot of point visiting Matamata unless you’re a hobbit-botherer, but it does have a great café, beautiful avenues of mature trees, and its undulating green hills are pleasantly Shire-like. If your souvenir checklist includes a thoroughbred racehorse, this is the place to come.

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