Hobbiton pulls 600,000 visitors a year. Te Matua Ngahere is the second-largest living kauri tree in the world, a 4,000-year-old organism that fits inside a 10-minute walk. They are 35 minutes apart. The comparison is not flattering to one of them.
What you actually get at Hobbiton
A 2-hour guided tour through the Alexander Farm movie set. You follow a rope through 44 hobbit holes, take a photo at Bag End, drink one ginger beer or cider at the Green Dragon Inn, and leave. The bus from Matamata town centre is full. The car park is full. The hillside is full of other people doing exactly the same photo. Tickets run NZD $90 to $120 and must be booked weeks ahead. It is exactly as fun as a working movie set with a gift shop is, which is to say: it depends how much you love the films.
What you get at Te Matua Ngahere
A 30-minute forest walk in the Waipoua Forest, Northland. The walking track is wide and well-graded. The tree is 16.4 metres in girth, 30 metres tall, and estimated to be 2,500 to 4,000 years old. There is a viewing platform. There is no gift shop. The car park has 30 spaces. You are alone with the tree for as long as you want to stay. Admission is free. The site is a 90-minute drive north of Hobbiton, and an hour north of that is Tāne Mahuta (the largest kauri, "Lord of the Forest"), which is the same experience in slightly larger scale.
The honest case for Hobbiton anyway
If you are a Tolkien fan who has read the books to your children, who has watched the extended editions, who has the soundtrack, Hobbiton is one of the better managed movie-set experiences in the world. The grounds are immaculate, the guides know the lore, and the gift shop is excellent. The cost is real money for an experience that is essentially a theme park. That is not a criticism if you are a theme park person. If you are not, the same 90 minutes and the same NZD $90 will get you to Tāne Mahuta and back with cash for a sandwich.
The bit nobody publishes: real time and cost
Hobbiton: NZD $90 to $120 per adult, 2-hour tour, plus 90 minutes each way from Rotorua or Hamilton. Te Matua Ngahere + Tāne Mahuta: free, 1.5 to 2 hours in the forest, plus 2.5 hours' drive each way from Auckland. If you are already going north to the Bay of Islands or up to Cape Reinga, the kauris are a non-negotiable stop. If you are only in the Waikato for the Hobbiton set, the kauris are not on your route. That is the only real argument for one over the other.
How to actually get to the kauris
Drive to Opononi / Omapere (the gateway towns). Both kauris are 20 minutes south of there. Tāne Mahuta is the headline tree, and you should absolutely see it, but Te Matua Ngahere is the better walk. Take the foot trail from the car park, the loop is well-marked, and the viewing platform is right at the base. Allow an hour including parking and the short track. Combine both trees and you've spent 90 minutes in 4,000-year-old forest, alone.
View on map
Waipoua Forest · coordinates -35.6439, 173.5489