After a long and uneventful flight from Bangkok to Sydney (enhanced slightly by the lack of passengers, allowing as much luxury as economy can accomodate), Sophie and I met Libby, who had accomplished far more, having flown for over a day to meet us. We made the short flight to Auckland, where the campervan company provided us with Lucinda, a people carrier, to soften the blow of our van being involved in an accident and therefore unavailable. We happily took off into the city centre, the journey rather punctuated by Sophie's erratic braking. We found a nice hostel, where we inspected the dorm hunting for the apparently clean bunkbeds, before heading into the city centre for a wander - New Zealand was far colder than we anticipated, though we were restrained by our pursestrings in investing in warmer clothing, by the adopted behaviour in Thailand of spending no more than a few pounds on an item, unless extras were thrown in (New Zealanders don't take to haggling).

The following day, despite Sophie and Libby bravely making the climb up the mountainous path (which Libby had previously slid on her buttocks down, considering this a speedier option in her unsuitable footwear - saved only by the volume of her rucksacks) to the car park at 4am to insert a few extra dollars into the meter to prevent Lucinda being taken captive, we went up the sky tower to look out over Auckland (and admire brave bungy-jumpers, taking the plunge). We then drove to One Tree Hill, a large hill, also providing looks over Auckland, however unable to boast hosting a tree, following this icon having been attacked by a man weilding a chainsaw in a drug-induced state. Later on in the day we picked up our campervan, and began the drive through the city centre to Orewa, where we camped for the night.

We continued our travels northward, visiting Goat Island where we took a glass bottom boat tour around the island, seeing a penguin, rays and lots of fish. We freedom camped that night, following a long and stressful attempt at a three-point turn in the road in our 7metre long van, and once installed on the side of the road, had continual hooting from passersby (which we chose to ignore, closing the curtains to block out the noise). The following day we moved onto Russell, a small town with pretty beaches, where we did Parasailing, and Libby proudly kept herself together for two journeys, not requiring her Tenna Lady Max, accompanied by myself and Sophie (at one point during Sophie's trip the boat driver thought it funny to stop the boat and watch the couple plummet almost into the sea). We also took a stroll along another sandy beach, before meeting friendly Jack, an expat from Kent, who raved continually about Wanaker, his new home town, and offering us beer, but was up most of the night imparting his wisdom onto paper for us to take with us on our travels.

The following day we made a stop at Kerikeri, for Libby to call the grumpy woman at Lloyds (at our expense) to inform them that they had cancelled her card, only to be informed that "that was what you should expect if you were going to jet around the world", and she was adamant that our calltime was free. Sophie was also feeling a little tetchy following the news of Neil's injury, and took it upon herself to draft a letter of complaint to the Kiwi campervan company, listing (in bulletpoints) all of her disgruntles at the state of our van. These included:

- the fridge door swinging open whenever a corner was taken in Bess, causing a passenger to sit IN FRONT OF THE FRIDGE whilst moving, putting their life at danger in the interest of having chilled produce.

- the excrement found in our mobile toilet, and had to be removed, by hand, by myself and Libby

- the leaking fridge which has caused the "hall"carpet to become extremely smelly, and the resulting smell having to be removed at our own expense with Suddenly Spring air freshener

- the mirror in the bathroom swinging open and closed due to a fault in the closing mechanism, also having to be secured shut with OUR OWN sellotape

- the faulty step into the caravan, which would have caused extreme issues for our disabled guest, had they been able to fly - we consider the flights were cancelled due to this restriction alone

Our day was continued by a long trip up to the end of Ninety Mile Beach (via an exquisite chocolate factory, where we ate the testers and made a run for it, not particularly easy in a large campervan). At the beach we took a stroll, accomanied by Libby's new friend, a little dog "Babe" who then continued to attack her and run off, being chased on it's speedy legs by a Rottweiler, taking giant leaps in it's wake. That night we decided to drive down towards Auckland, however the Satnav was unable to comprehend this (taking us on ten kilometer trips for an appropriate place it considered suitable for us (usually on a large slope) to turn around, drive the ten kilometres back and take a left turn), and took us into the middle of nowhere, through a very dark and eerie forest. At the end of this track road, Libby spotted a jaguar/ bear strolling along side us, and temporarily lost control of the vehicle (I was busy grabbing the steerwheel from her shocked state), and awakening Sophie from her cocoon in the back. At this point we decided that turning back may be sensible, as freedom camping in this region we did not consider safe, especially considering Sophie's like of feeding the local wild animals her particularly dull muesli. On the way back down the unmarked track we almost ran over the last remaining wild kiwi feasting at the side of the road (which Sophie unfortunately missed sighting to her great disappointment considering her obsession with these flightless birds (she even tried to squeeze Bess through a small gate to reach a Kiwi farm, which was in fact clearly signed as closed, in the hope of sighting one of these birds)). We freedom camped again this night, all squeezing into Sophie's bunk in fear of being attacked by the wandering lion - we considered our location, in a town park as safe, as we were fewer than a hundred metres from the safety of the local fire station complete with a fire crew.

This morning we set back down towards Auckland, stopping at the Waipauo Forest to see the Kauroi trees (potentially the biggest in the world), which were amazing, one of which was over 2000 years old, born when Jesus himself walked the land. Sophie and Libby were particularly impressed with our innovative photography which turned out to be identical to the photographs of the trees shown in her Lonely Planet guide book. After this eventful stop we took the monstrous drive back to Orewa (tempted by the limitless heavenly showers and wonderful sunrises), stopping only to consider a skiing slope (though second thoughts were had about whether we would be admitted in our unwashed state), though we found the run far too synthetic for our excellent skiing abilities, and decided it a better option to hold back until real snow was found.

We are currently back in the campsite, heading down tomorrow (NOT picking up Neil from the airport as our van is not disabled friendly).

Much love,

Elinor, Sophie and Libby

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