"It's attracted a lot of interest, so since then I have been putting together better Lord Of The Rings costumes for my helpers to wear at Peter Jackson's filming sites, and they have been having a ball leaping about as Gollum and Strider, Tauriel and Arwen, while I enjoy wandering around being Gandalf."
I think the rental of LOTR costumes, to enable visitors to re-enact LOTR scenes, could become a viable summer tourist money spinner in this town this year. John said.
Matamata's Hobbiton is only one LOTR film set, but there are a dozen forest,and alpine LOTR scene settings near Ohakune
The Tongariro Crossing has hundreds of people hiking it every day during the summer and dozens and dozens of LOTR's fans have tossed rings into the crater.
"It's a very satisfying hobbit thing to do to throw a ring into the crater.''
The Whanganui - Ruapehu area has always been home for John who grew up initially in Mangamahu.
"I was born just before the Second World War and when all the men went away I was the only small child left in the village.''
When he grew up he became a science teacher.
"So local history and any new development in science have always interested me. I visited Fijian and Indian villages while I was teaching in Suva and that introduced me to Pacific and Asian languages also."
After working in Waiouru - his wife Lynn as an army nurse and John as a reporter for the Army News - were happy years, he said.
Then they decided move to their own home in Ohakune.
"It was surrounded by empty sections smothered with broom and blackberry, and I have spent my retirement turning this wasteland into parkland, with about 1500 native trees now established on 30 or more sections."
He said that in his first year of landscaping he could clear, dig, plant and spray for a couple of hours before stopping for half an hour's rest.
"But as the hedgerows of pittosporums and ribbonwoods and hebes have become longer and longer, my endurance times have grown shorter and shorter. Being in one's mid-seventies is interesting.
"I have found the solution to this problem has been to host those lovely young people from overseas who are here on working holidays. They have come from France, China, Argentina, Germany and a dozen other countries and many of them want to visit the mountain where Frodo destroyed the One Ring To Rule Them All.
Over the last three years they have done a huge amount of work helping a "doddery old bloke" maintain his native trees, he laughed.
"I have given them bed, board and new experiences up and around the mountains here.
"The delighted owners of the neighbouring sections have covered my expenses, and everybody is happy."
