Kasper visits Hobbiton #LordofTheRings #Holiday

So where does a fantasy author go for her holiday?  Middle Earth, of course.
​Visiting the sets of the biggest fantasy series of all time was definitely on my bucket list, and I was delighted to have the chance to visit there with Hubby and the halflings.

We met Gollum in Matamata and caught a big green bus out to the Hobbiton farm.  The drive passed rolling green hills and fields of cows and sheep.  We really did feel as though we were in entering The Shire.

The hobbit holes were everything we had dreamed they would be.  Even in the pouring rain, we delighted from walking to each of the 40-odd holes built into the hills.  It was so exciting when our guide would point out the place where Frodo jumped onto Gandalf's cart, or where Gandalf set off a firework to amuse the curious children.
​Everything was so lush and it did indeed look as though the hobbits still lived there and were just away at the moment; perhaps at the party field celebrating Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday.

It really was such a surreal experience to visit a locale which we had imagined since we were children and had finally glimpsed in the LoTR and Hobbit movies.
​Even our younger children, who were too young to watch the full movies were excited to peer into the windows and to imagine the hobbits living there.

There were delights around every curve in the path.  Bag End especially was a favourite, because it is so well known and features so heavily in the movies.  The view from this door looked across the whole of The Shire to the party field with its huge tree and across the lake to the water mill and the Green Dragon Inn.

After being soaked to the bone in the chilly rain, it was splendid to enter the Green Dragon Inn and to have a mug of South Farthing Ginger Beer in front of a warm fire.  It was like coming home.  We loved Hobbiton and recommend for travellers of all ages.