
So, yes, on the Sunday in New Zealand I went to Hobbiton. In fact I took a guided minibus trip that also included some caves with glow-worms in them which, while pretty, didn't quite live up to the hype and wouldn't allow photos.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect at Hobbiton - it is a movie set after all, but actually - as both the guide on the minibus and the one he handed us over to once we got there explained - the set used for Lord of the Rings had been completely removed at the end of filming. However, over the subsequent years the farm started making a lot of money from driving fans up to the empty field where the set had been, so when The Hobbit movies came round they proposed that the film build everything for real and then operate it in an ongoing fashion as a tourist attraction. This is what is there today and it's pretty impressive. You can't go in to most of the hobbit holes, but I gathered they all had an actual room behind the door (mostly used for storage).
To be honest, I have a lot of photos of misc hobbit holes so I've bunged them all into the directory which I use for random Friday pictures, so you can see them as they pop out amid all the castles, fossils and random neolithic stones. Even so, and with some strategic weeding, there are a lot of photos.
( You have been warned! )