For the Lord of the Rings enthusiast the highlight of a trip to New Zealand would probably have been visiting the Hobbiton movie set. The tiny hobbit village lies on quite remote farmland between Rotorua and Auckland and day trips for around hundred New Zealand dollars are available from both these cities.
The drive from Rotorua is about an hour each way and the tour itself is just ninety minutes. Going on a weekend it was packed with people and it felt quite rushed and restricted going in the group with a tour leader who asked us to move along the whole time. The tour finished with a visit to the Green Dragon, the most cozy bar I think I will ever visit where we had an included beer that was brewed there and exclusive to the bar. That bar visit and all the fun facts we were told, like the leafs on one of the trees had to be hand painted made it a pretty cool half day trip!
