We set off early again, in search of a special place. We had scoured our tourist road atlas and asked at the information centre, but nobody seemed to know the way. We even looked for a small ugly creature with a rasping voice to take us there, but to no avail. We knew it wasn’t far away… We then consulted our copy of the Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook. Sure enough, it was able to tell us. To find The Shire, we had to head for a place called Matamata. So, after an hour and a half of expert driving (Graeme) and excellent navigation (me) through flat farmland and small rolling hills, we came to Matamata. Arranging a visit to The Shire turned out to be very easy - tours run frequently throughout the day,
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