Traveling with Ray Owens

Day 30. Wednesday February 12, 2025 (Also Thursday morning)

Well today was the day we were going to middle earth. Sadly, today was also the day Penny was dealing with a cold and did not get a lot of rest last night. Consequently she opted not to go. It was a good day but would have been better if she had been with me to listen to me ooh and aah and a few “would you look at that!”.

The day began at 9:30 by walking across the street to a large driveway for picking up passengers. There I met several other folks waiting to be taken by Cheeky Kiwi Tours to Hobbiton.

Gary and adult son Matthew are from London. They were nice. Gary’s wife did not join them today.

Our driver for the day was Simon. He was also our DJ for our drive. He hit all the decades from the 60’s to last week. There was also a mother and recent high school graduate son on our tour. They were from Florida and the subject of country music came up so we heard some of that.

It was 2 hour trip to the Anderson farm who was a New Zealand sheep farmer who won the lottery of sorts when Peter Jackson stopped at his door and asked if he could look at his farm land to possibly use for a film. Mr Anderson was watching a rugby match on the television and said, sure just make sure you shut the gates after you go through.

The hobbit village was originally made to be temporary and after the movie they were removed. When the movie made a bigillion dollars the Anderson family and Peter Jackson teamed up to recreate the hobbit village and two buildings that you could actually go inside. This hobbit village was only used for the exterior shots in the movie. All of the inside shots were made in a studio in Wellington. The Proudfoot family home was created here in 2013. It is very impressive. I will try to upload the video.

Penny was feeling pretty good when I got back around 6:45. We opted to have our last New Zealand dinner at Lord Nelson steakhouse. I had a ribeye marinaded in teriyaki sauce which I am pretty sure they forgot to do. But it was still a good steak.

It was a very pleasant day in the Shire. I had a great day.

The rest of the evening was spent packing and weighing our suitcases for our flight this morning to Brisbane, Australia. We arranged for an Uber to pick us up at 5:30 for 8:40 boarding. The Uber driver arrived at 5:15 about 45 seconds after we got to the pick up spot. We arrived at the airport at 5:45. Penny booked Premium Economy tickets for us. Air New Zealand has a premium luggage check in place that is very fancy. It had machines but also very helpful people to check us in. I felt like a very important person in the VIP area.

We were way early but I am sure I would have been a nervous Ned if we had waited any longer. We are at the gate.