laravel 5.7 redirect from controller

I'm sure I'm doing something blindingly obvious.. but I can't see what I'm doing wrong here..

I have a controller function

public function extsearch() {
    return redirect()->away('https://www.dropbox.com');
}

The route is fine as I've tested it with a view instead and it renders fine.. but this code gives me a "Page Not Found" error, and nothing in the logs.

From what I've seen this is the correct syntax for an external URL (obviously a dummy here). Laravel docs are typically somewhat opaque on this.

via Chebli Mohamed