On Friday 9th March it was an early start as the alarm sang "take my hand, walk with me, on a nice summers day'. We slapped it off and got up, quickly got refreshed, gobbled down some breakfast then took the massive 2 minute walk to the train station. 45 minutes later after 1 change we arrived at the airport, checked our bags in, were told we would not be allowed in New Zealand unless we had our outward flight booking printed so rushed round trying to get a printout of that then headed to security. On the way through the scanners they spotted something in Rachel's bag and asked if they could search it. While Rachel was running through her bags to find the dangerous item, another security man leapt on me and took me for a random explosive test……… panic started setting in, the night before we had used the last of the sparklers I had got at Christmas……would the powder stuff still be on my fingers….. will I ever get to New Zealand……Thankfully I passed, and shortly after Rachel was released to being told to leave the mini metal game in her checked in luggage in future.

We spent the next hour in McDonalds having breakfast and making some short phone calls home with the rest of our credit before we boarded the plan. It was a short flight where we must have spent an hour driving round the airport before it finally took off and then only 2 hours in the air before we touched down in New Zealand after watching 'The Descendants'. We headed for the security and after a few questions got through the first barrier, then went to the next and got checked for food and dirt, Rachel failed the clean shoe test so they sent us somewhere else and took her shoes away. They came back a couple of minutes later apparently clean (or maybe they just couldn't take the smell). We then got sent somewhere else and our bags taken away and scanned, thankfully this time everything was ok and we were released into New Zealand.

We phoned the Car Hire Company and after an hour standing in the cold they sent someone to pick us up. We got to the pick up location and he pointed to our campervan, I was so excited as it was much bigger then the one we had booked so had obviously got a free upgrade yay. We spent 10 minutes signing documents then were about to head out to see it. Foolishly I said 'so how come we got the free upgrade', the guy looked a bit confused then said 'oh no that's not your one is it, you've got the one over there'. He started flipping through to the correct documents then found the other key and took us to what we had originally booked, D'oh I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut.

We drove to a Mall and got some cash, then a Cheese Naan, then did a quick food shop before heading to a campsite. We checked in and parked the car (a lot easier then pitching a tent). We sorted out our new home for the next month and then headed to the kitchen area for some grub. We then spent the rest of the evening planning what we were going to be doing over the next few weeks before curling up in bed.