“I’M going on an adventure!” bellowed Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.
And that’s what I shouted too before setting out on the long and winding roads through astonishingly beautiful New Zealand, where The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings trilogies were filmed.
While Bilbo raced off on foot from The Shire, I drove 2,000 miles to check if those spectacular vistas in the movies of JRR Tolkien’s books weren’t enhanced just a bit.
Turns out, the cinema screen doesn’t do them justice.
The mountains, valleys, forests, lakes, rivers, beaches, geysers and glaciers are breathtaking.