Managed to get up at a reasonable time to finish packing and leave the city roads before they were closed for Auckland's175th celebrations. Took a taxi to the campervan hire depot and cabbie didn't stop moaning once (most unlike a London cabbie!). Motorhome sound and got a quick hand over and directions.

We set off and immediately directions went out of the window as 300 yards down the road we ended up circumnavigating the airport in totally the wrong direction - clearly Tom's fault as sue was navigating!

Finally got onto the right road south and headed to our first campsite at Coromandel on the Coromandel peninsular. We are both agreed that this has to be one of the best and most scenic drive we have ever undertaken (so far). The seaside route literally hugs the foot of the mountains and each bend offered yet better and better views of the most stunning coastline. The 2 ½ hour journey took 5 as we had to keep stopping.

We passed through some small towns all quite similar to those you might see in mid-west America with typically timber built buildings. We decided to stop at Thames as it said it was the biggest town on the Coromandel peninsula and was at the fore of the gold rush. We popped into the local historic museum with Sue moaning that 2 museums within 1 week was really going too far but even she admitted that it was really quite cute and actually fascinating.

Once at Coromondel we totally misjudged the time it would take us to complete a local walk and eventually staggered back to set the camper van up for the night ……… well easier said than done and I think we would challenge any rubic cube champion to make up a double bed out of a few couches, a table and countless odd shaped cushions! Suffice to say we agreed to disagree and crashed out on a total shambles of a bed!