Hobbiton

Queue halcyon flute music. Queue short people with oversize, hairy feet. Queue the most amazing attraction we've yet seen on our New Zealand adventure. Welcome to Hobbiton, filming location for the outdoor scenes of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. The set is on a private family farm a couple hours south of Auckland. Dozens of round doors are nestled into gentle green hills. Woven between the Hobbit holes are gardens and fruit trees, laundry hanging to dry, and other evidence of daily life. 

Being in the middle of a movie set was incredible--surreal and awesome at the same time. Everything is carefully maintained to appear as though it really is an inhabited village. No detail is forgotten. I could have stayed there for hours had it been allowed. 

I took dozens of photos but Blogger and the limited New Zealand internet are colluding to prevent me from uploading more of them to this post. Will try later, but this gives you a taste of how cool it was to be in a fictitious land for an hour.