Today our alarm went off at 5:30am - as usual, we woke up 10 minutes before! Our first problem of the day was getting out of the hostel - noone was on the desk, front door was locked and alarmed, taxi driver wating outside looking in at us looking at him! Eventually he gestured to Laura to answer the phone on the desk, he rang it and told her to go upstairs and wake up the owner to let us out! The owner didn't seem to mind and was actually quite apologetic about us being locked in!

At the airport, we checked in and had a breakfast of toast and warm cornflakes (they served us warm milk for the cornflakes..). Once we were on the plane, we had our second breakfast and before we knew it we were descending into Auckland - a quick 3 hour flight.

In the airport, we visited probably what will be the first of many I-sites, which are set up all over NZ to give tourist information. After collecting a forest's worth of brochures and leaflets, we headed outside to wait for the pick-up to take us to the campervan rental place, the guy was very friendly, as were the people at Backpacker Campervans. We got free apples and coffee while we sat down to watch a DVD explaining the features of our van. The helpful French lady sold us a map of NZ and we went to collect our van. We're driving a small Mitsubishi L300 with 3 front seats, a seat in the back that converts to a double bed, gas stove, kitchen stuff and bedding - all enough to keep us going for the next 3 months!

After leaving the airport, we called in to a Countdown supermarket to pick up supplies for the next few days. I had a go at driving around the car park, but found it tricky after 6 months of no driving (the automatic in Arkansas doesn't count!). I think I'll let Laura drive for now until we get on quieter roads!

After that, we headed to our first campsite - Remeura Motor Park, close to the city - it had a kitchen, lounge with TV, hot showers - they won't all be like that! Did our laundry and watched the news about the London riots. Got talking to a kiwi bloke who gave us a few tips. We then headed back to the van, performed the 'mini miracle' to convert the van into a bed, and settled down for our first nights sleep in NZ!