Lying in my tent for my first night of camping I feel very proud and pleased with myself. I have passed my NZ driving induction with a 3.5h journey north of Auckland to the Waipoua Forest. My only issue with the locals is their impatience. Some of us are trying to take in the scenery whilst driving!

I have also completed a shopping trip so we now have a complete camping ensemble, including a very cute mallet!

Driving in a new country is always enlightening, and a little embarrassing when you arrive at a camp ground, forget you are in an automatic, and put both feet to the floor, thus resulting in a somewhat dramatic and dust filled emergency stop!

Shopping is always interesting too... My experience at pak n save was no different. As in the US, everything comes in BIG quantities. The blocks of butter being about 4 times the size of the standard UK ones, great if you are Mary Berry, not so great if you are me! I sat and pondered for quite a while over the packing of shopping... So, here, you put your stuff into a trolley, then on to the conveyor belt, then the check out assistant puts it in your trolley, you take it to the car and then pack it into the reusable bags your brought with you. As Gary would say, if someone did a time motion analysis I'm pretty sure they'd not be doing that anymore!

Having made my grand skidding entrance into the visitor centre I put up my tent for the first time, reorganised the back of the car and had supper. I then went for a walk down to the river and along a track through the podocarp forest. Tis fair to say that most ferns were huge, I felt like a Lilliputian walking amongst them. Various bits reminded me of different things. The ferns, of Dartmoor. The smell, of French forests in the summer sun. The noise of the birds, like those in the rain forests of Borneo. It made me think that the brain's way of making sense is to compare them to previous experiences.