{"id":65567,"date":"2012-11-21T04:30:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=65567"},"modified":"2012-11-21T04:31:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T09:31:48","slug":"how-a-sleepy-country-town-became-hobbiton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2012\/11\/21\/65567-how-a-sleepy-country-town-became-hobbiton\/","title":{"rendered":"How a sleepy country town became Hobbiton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/5748583.jpg\" class=\"no-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/5748583-261x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Waikato Times Hobbiton Photo\" width=\"261\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-48785 no-lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/5748583-261x300.jpg 261w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/5748583.jpg 298w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 261px) 100vw, 261px\" \/><\/a> A decade ago, Matamata was a sleepy country town in the middle of the North Island, well-placed for travellers in need of a comfort stop and a takeaway snack. Today, it is better known as Hobbiton and is one of the country&#8217;s star tourist destinations, attracting 1.9 million visitors over the last 10 years. It is poised for a fresh invasion starting this Christmas which seems certain to top that number over the next decade. <\/p>\n<p>It all began in 1998 when movie director Peter Jackson took to the sky in a small plane in search sites to film his planned trilogy of JRR Tolkien&#8217;s The Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n<p>His target was a piece of countryside untouched by concrete buildings, power poles and roads that he could transform into Hobbiton, the primitive village home of Tolkien&#8217;s small, hairy, Hobbit people.<\/p>\n<p>A family farm outside Matamata, set about halfway between the provincial capital, Hamilton, and the tourist city of Rotorua, and complete with Tolkien&#8217;s so-called &#8220;party tree&#8221; and a lake, proved perfect.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.3news.co.nz\/How-a-sleepy-country-town-became-Hobbiton\/tabid\/1748\/articleID\/277457\/Default.aspx#ixzz2Cqa5nzE0\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A decade ago, Matamata was a sleepy country town in the middle of the North Island, well-placed for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":48785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"How a sleepy country town transformed into Hobbiton.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,333,5,99,20,148,149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbit-movie","category-hobbit-locations","category-lotr-movies","category-lotr-production","category-new_zealand","category-hobbit","category-lotr"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/5748583.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-h3x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65571,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65567\/revisions\/65571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}