My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots... 

"PROUDFEET!"

Sorry folks, had to be done... And if you don't have a pickle what that is referring to... Well, shame on you! Go back to the shadows of which you came... You're banned from reading anymore of my entries. Not sure that poses as a threat to any of you really... 

So yeah, we definitely visited the bloody SHIRE didn't we?... 100 bucks each. Included our ride up there and back and a tour of Hobbiton (of course). 
First Impressions... We were greeted by a s*** ton of sheep. Fluffy, squidgy, little baby lambs chewing on their greens, and some chubby elders waddling about. Sheep are possibly the most dopey looking creatures, aren't they? I know I can pull some gormless faces at times, but Jesus, these poor b*****'s eyes don't even look the same way. 
The sheep were scattered over big, fat 'Teletubbies' style hills... Was half expecting Tinky Winky to skip out from behind the clusters of sheep... I need to learn how to stop rambling... It's bad for my health. 

We hopped into this tour bus... Named Gandalf. They named the bus Gandalf. Genius. Haha! It was pretty old to be fair, like fine wine... Delicate, but does the job. 
We rolled up towards the entrance to Hobbiton, where we met our Tour Guide who was not a sheep, but a human. A human that looked very much like an oversized Hobbit. Think it was purely down to his curly hair, bright eyes and mannerisms. 

He gave us an introduction, and also told us about some of the Lord of the Rings fanatics that had been there before... dressed in cloaks... Full on Hobbit clans arriving down etc... Kinda wish I wore a cloak. Possibly the only place where you're perfectly entitled to wear a cloak, even if it's not Halloween... And I missed the bloody opportunity! 
Got a little, happy shiver down my neck as we walked through the lavish, green entrance... It was so stunning... And there they were, popping out like daisies... Hobbit holes! Forget the cloak! I was there, in the HOBBIT zone... Even set my backpack to 'two strap' mode. So many little Hobbit holes... All with tiny, colourful, circular doors. Each Hobbit hole had its own theatrical set up... some had piles of fire wood and axes, others had stools with bread baskets, garments hanging up, flower pots... Just anything that symbolised 'Shire Folk' was presented outside the Hobbit holes. 
You couldn't enter all of them, because they were made for external use only in the film. Not that it mattered. :D 
By the way folks, I may have accidentally knocked over a plant pot... So if it looks different in any of the new films, that may be why... 
The garden there was a real garden where crops and flowers grew. They have gardeners working there to maintain the earthy goods... So it's proper legit, muddy business. 

Throughout the tour our guide was telling us where certain parts of the film were shot. The part where Gandalf arrives at the beginning of the 'Fellowship', where he meets Frodo... 

"A Wizard is never late Frodo Baggins..."

Following?? 

We were standing right there! I'm nerding out so hard right now... Think I just created a nerdgasm. It gave me the goosiest of goose bumps. 

It was hard holding back on the Hobbit Hole piccies... I'm sure you guys would get fed up of seeing 30 colourful, circular doors... But they were all amazing. We took piccies of the important Holes. 

We saw Bag End. BAG BLOODY END!!! It had the little, grumpy sign on the gate and everything! It's truly crazy what lengths they went to creating the film. The tree over hanging Bag End is a fake tree! The tree was cut down, chopped into pieces, shipped over to NZ from Japan, then they stuck the bloody thing back together using some kind of resin to preserve the shape. Fake leaves were then stuck on to reach the desired look. For the Hobbit Film, they changed that tree to make it look 60 years younger. All that effort, for maybe 20secs worth of film. Absolutely, blooming nuts... Inspirational actually. Passionate film making skills right there. 

We saw the party field, where there were tents and those happy ribbon things on a stick... You know where a bunch of pansies skip around a pole with their ribbons? Morris dancing folk get involved with that kind of s***... You know the type... there's that one kid in every school that has a Morris dancing loving family. Weird kid... Simple lunches... They might get a kiwi in their school lunch box, but only on special occasions... I'm rambling again. 

The field over looked a river (which they drained! To make a bridge...More crazy, film producing antics...). On the other side of the river... A lovely looking cottage with a water mill... That's right ladies and gentlemen, The Green Dragon Pub!!! So of course, we all made our way over for our free beverage... Wheyyy!! 

"That my friend, is a pint!!"

They were maybe half pints? Slightly less... Served to us in these little crockery cups. We felt like proper Hobbits. Me and Mo tried chinking our crockery... 'Tap!'
It was so cool in there. A dragon was carved into the panel overlooking the bar. Was super cosy inside. They had Hobbit outfits hung up on the cloak hooks... So of course... It'd be rude not to use the garments available to us... and dress up like Hobbits in THE GREEN DRAGON PUB! Ahhh!!