Epic journey to Middle Earth begins!

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Feeling uber excited at the start of my 'Journey to Middle Earth' sat on the train from Norwich to London. The title of my blog is of course a reference to The Hobbit whose film adaptations used New Zealand to evoke the other worldliness of Tolkien's fantastical imagination. I can't profess to being a particular fan, mostly because of Orks! Why all the rage and blood lust from dawn until dusk? What's their motivation? Instead of ripping out the guts of some poor unsuspecting random Middle Earth dweller why don't they just have a bit of a lie in before sauntering down to the local coffee shop for a frappeamericanolatecappocino (I'm a tea drinker, can you tell?) and a read of the Rivendell Review.

Hobbit references aside I'm finding out a bit about New Zealand - fact rather than fiction - before I arrive. First off, New Zealand is one of the most isolated countries in the world. This REALLY appeals to Lottie loner and I'm already feeling a sense of escape and natural affinity.

Early Maori arrivals named it AOTEAROA 'the land of the white cloud' on seeing clouds covering the high ranges of South Island. With 223 named peaks over 2,300m high, the name was probably very apt.

On a map New Zealand appears to be a very close neighbour of its antipodean big brother Australia but the two are more like estranged distant cousins being a whopping 1000 miles apart. New Zealand is fairly similar in size to the UK, but the population size is very different compared to our crowded isle. Just 4.5 million people are split between the two main islands that make up New Zealand, a higher proportion choosing North Island as their home and of those most live in Auckland.

Isolation has produced some weird and wonderful native flora and fauna. However although there's plentiful bird and fish life native mammals are rare indeed, only two species of bat to be precise. Any other mammals you see in New Zealand are interlopers who stowed a ride with the early Maori and European settlers.

The major draw for me though is the clean, pristine, relatively untouched landscape, part ticularly the snow-covered mountains and glaciers in the south.

And so I arrive at Heathrow and check in with Air China for the first leg of my epic journey to Middle Earth, Beijing. Let the discoveries begin...

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