To buy, or not to buy? That was the question.

To be more precise, the original question was how long would it take us to buy a campervan? Those who had known us take four months to buy our furniture in St Vlas - including eight weeks just to hang the paintings - were betting that our allotted time of five days would be at least doubled. In gambling terminology, the smart money was 'going long' on our purchase of the ideal vehicle to carry us around New Zealand.

Well, the smart money was wrong. Sort of.

We completed our primary task of finding and arranging a campervan not in five days, and certainly not in the five weeks that some people were forecasting. We found our van in five… hours!!!

It was in fact only the second vehicle we looked at. Katy had been researching companies, van types, prices, the speed at which vehicles sell etc, for half the summer so she knew the market pretty well. We kept an eye on availability while in Hong Kong and picked up some leaflets at Auckland airport.

However, most of the vehicles we saw for sale were absolute crap, the type of van you wouldn't want your dog to sleep in. One of the main locations for buying campervans in Auckland is meant to be the Backpackers Car Market - a grandiose title for a single-floor concrete building housing maybe a dozen vans and a similar number of cars. Almost all of them were absolute wrecks.

This might have been because it was the start of the season - we suspected that most of the vehicles were left over from last year. And it wasn't as if they were dirt cheap because some of the heaps were on sale for around NZ$5,000.

That made a van we had seen at the first place we visited - the Rental Car Village on Great North Road - seem quite good value. They had a Toyota Townace for NZ$5,250 fully equipped including electrics, camping stove, water etc.

While there, we had also looked over a Mazda campervan which was available for rent for NZ$4,500 for six months. Rental? Surely not. We hadn't seriously considered hiring at that stage, because after doing our research on the internet we had decided that it would be far too costly.

After looking at the state of the for-sale market, however, we started to do the sums.

Buying even the most rubbish van would mean about NZ$750 of fixed costs such as insurance, mechanical inspection, AA cover, new WOF (like an MOT) and road tax. In addition, there would be the expenses of selling it at the end of our trip - probably another NZ$200 for an average 10 days at the car market. While selling, we would need to stay in a hotel or hostel rather than a campsite - an extra $300.

We also had to estimate how much we might receive when we sold the van - at the end of a season in a depressed market, This would be an almost certain loss of at least NZ$1,000, maybe catastrophically more if we hadn't sold by our date of departure in May and had to dump the vehicle. Then we had to take account of any repairs - unquantifiable, but potentially high. The total costs of ownership might reasonably be assumed to be around $2,750.

Also important was the fact that we collectively know b*****-all about engines and cars - changing a tyre would be a life-changing experience for both of us.

All of a sudden, renting seemed to be a viable option, because it included all the fixed costs above (such as fully comprehensive insurance, breakdown cover, repairs etc) and even all the bedding, camping equipment, fridge and so on. And we could call a garage if we needed to change a tyre!

Renting wouldn't have been economical from the well-known, well-advertised companies such as Jucy, Escape or Exploremore. We checked and their prices for a six-month rental were as high as NZ$15,000, or £5,555.

But hiring the Mazda from the Rental Car Village would be only NZ$4,500. Subtract the forecast expenses for buying and selling of $2,750, and that left a cost (relative to buying) of $NZ1,750 - or approximately £650.

So that's what we have done. By the time you read this, we will have picked up our van and will be heading towards our first camp site on the west coast of the North Island.

I'm sure there is one more thing that you are dying to know. What is the van called???

Everyone knows that this is the most important thing about owning a vehicle. In addition, there are really only three factors which should influence the name - the registration number (but we can't remember what that is), the make (Mazda) and the colour (white).

After much consideration, we chose the name Blanche. Why? She's white, slightly run-down and past her prime - just like Blanche in the Tennessee Williams play and film, 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. So that's two literary allusions in a single blog.

All we ask is that Blanche makes it to the end of the third act…

Richard