The transfer van from Apollo came to collect us from the airport at 8am, 7 hours after we had arrived. By this point I was absolutely hanging! It took us straight to the Apollo office about a 5 minute drive away. On arrival we were both so excited to collect our little home for the next month. We hoped collecting the Campervan would be reasonably straight forward as we had booked it months ago and had all the paperwork to hand. I had also hired exactly the same Campervan two years ago when I travelled Australia with my bestie Sarah so I knew what we were getting! Unfortunately, the company we booked the Campervan through, Apollo, tried to pie us off with an old van that was a lot smaller, lower in spec, smelly, rusty and with no curtains! How they thought we were going to sleep and dress in a van with no curtains, especially as it's summer here, I just don't know. I was so tired and just wanted to sleep on the bed in front of me but thankfully Matthew was having none of it. We'd paid an absolute fortune to hire this camper for a month so he was going to get what we paid for.

On informing the assistant manager (and actually very politely considering) that actually we weren't happy with the atrocious camper they thought they were going to fob us off with, she absolutely exploded! I genuinely mean she just lost it! She was stood up with her hands on the desk, shouting at us and her face was red with anger. She told us we had to except that Campervan as they didn't have anything else, it was that or "get out!" After very politely asking her to please calm down, and informing her that we weren't going anywhere as we had just paid a large amount to their company, and also asking to speak to the manager as she wasn't helping us, she point blank refused to contact him and also refused to serve us any longer. We honestly could not believe the attitude of this awful woman, how the hell she was in customer service I don't know. We didn't say a word at this point as we were both genuinely gobsmacked! Needless to say, a very in depth email of complaint has been fired off to the head office of Apollo Motorhomes.

Another, more helpful assistant told us that she could completely understand where we were coming from as the vehicle we ordered to hire was actually higher in spec but they didn't have any available at that time, however they did have one coming back from another couple at 4.30pm that afternoon. Even though it meant wasting our first day in New Zealand waiting around for a Campervan to arrive that should have been ready for pick up at 8am, they did lend us a vehicle so that we could at least go to the shops for some food. Little did they know, we set the bed up and had a 2 hour sleep... which was actually quite difficult as there were no curtains! We arrived back at the Apollo offices early afternoon and waited for the correct Campervan to come back in. Eventually, after it had been checked and cleaned, we were on our way just after 4pm. We absolutely loved our little camper! His name was printed on the side, 'Jimi', and he was exactly what we were hoping for! I wish I would have been more excited but I was absolutely exhausted and also still quite disgruntled and a little upset about the incident at the office. I feel we haven't been awfully lucky with the some of the people we have met on our travels so far. A lot of the problems we have encountered have actually nothing to do with us or our organisation but are caused by other people's lack of ability to provide what we have paid for or agreed to, and I have learnt that this is something I really struggle to understand or have any time for.

That evening we headed straight to our first destination of Twizel. It took roughly 5 and half hours to get there after a fish and chips food stop in one of the towns on the way. We also filled our camper kitchen up with food from a supermarket. We had downloaded a couple of campsite apps so that we could always view where they were even when not in wifi. We found a cheap campsite in Twizel with good reviews so we were hoping to stay there. However, I completely forgot that with the campsites, the receptions close around 9pm so if you don't get there before then, you can't stay. At this point it was 9.30pm and there was no sign of anyone at reception. This wouldn't usually have been an issue but in New Zealand, you are not allowed to park up on the side of a road in a Campervan and sleep- they call this freedom camping. You have to be either in a campsite or at a Department of Conservation site (DOC). These DOCS are rarely free and usually between 10-20 dollars a night but there aren't many dotted around unfortunately. If you ignore the freedom camping law and get caught, you could face a 250 dollar fine, which obviously we did not want. We were so tired and hadn't really got to grips with the camping malarkey so after serious debate we thought we would risk it as it was late and we would set our alarms early. We crossed our fingers and hoped we weren't woken by an angry policeman