We had set out on a day trip from Auckland to go and see a thermal village in Rotorua.  It’s a bit of a hike, but there were three of us to share the driving so we took the opportunity.  (We actually hadn’t intended on visiting the Hobbiton Movie set!) About halfway there we ran into some road work and had to go on a detour through the countryside.  As we were driving along we were all thinking to ourselves about how much it looked like the scenery from the Hobbit movie. 

One of us wondered out loud and then we all said we had been thinking the same thing.  A quick search on Google showed that we were, in fact, very close to the Hottiton Movie set!  Since we had no pressing deadlines to meet (the absolute bliss of being on holidays) we changed course and stopped in for a visit at the movie set in Matamata in New Zealand, to see what we could see.