The flight from Santiago in Chile to Auckland in New Zealand was a long uncomfortable 13 hours. After having the comfort of (most but NOT all) South American buses for two and a half months we noticed the reduction in space on the plane and found it difficult to get comfy. We left Santiago at 11pm on Tuesday and arrived in Auckland at 4am on Thursday and felt rather jet lagged and a bit confused with times and dates. We hung around in the airport until 8am waiting for the Campervan shops to open so we could order our Campervan and set off on our kiwi travels. We were disappointed to realise the prices of the vans were a lot more than we had anticipated, so we booked into hotel to decide what to do. After wandering around the city for a while and getting quotes for the campervans we realised the price wasn't coming down due to being at the start of their summer season. We decided to have a look on the internet as a last resort to see if we could find anything cheaper and luckily we did, a company had just bought in a fleet of cheap "backpacker" campervans and wanted them out on the road ASAP so we got a good deal. Calvin, our campervan is amazing he has a microwave, 2 hobs, a fridge, a sink, a TV (that doesn't work), a BBQ, GPS, bed and a picnic table and it has "Happy Campers" plastered all over the side which puts under a bit of pressure sometimes because when people look at you in the van you feel the need to have a huge grin on your face! We were also really excited at the prospect of being the first "Happy Campers" as the company hadn't rented out any vans yet!

After booking our Campervan we went to the Sky Tower to see the views over Auckland and watch some crazy people throw themselves off the top of the building. The views were quite spectacular over the harbour and the surrounding islands and it was quite entertaining to watch the crazy people bungy jump past the observation tower waving on their way down. We considered jumping but felt there would be much better opportunities elsewhere in NZ.

The next morning we were up early to collect the Campervan and set off on our travels towards Waitomo. Only a short stay in Auckland but we thought it was best to move on as we only have 4 weeks and there is a lot to see and do in New Zealand.