Auckland, New Zealand

We arrived in Auckland on 28th April, after a quick stopover in Sydney. Our hotel is right on the corner of Customs and Queen Streets, so is really central. After some food and showers we were ready for bed. These are the softest beds we've had since December. We overslept our 7am alarms in the morning, luckily we weren't picking up the van until 11am which was co-incidently our checking out time. We found the Escape Rentals depot after a quick detour, it turns out it was very close to where we'd stayed, but we did scope out a place to come back and have brunch.

We were taken care of by Zoe who threw in a bunch of tshirts, a picnic table and a DVD player as well as making sure all the equipment being put into the van was the new stuff from the supply cupboard. We weren't able to choose the van design as they only had a couple available for hire and by taking the Mazda van, we got a couple of extra feet of space for sleeping. Ideal. All of the van designs have been done by NZ artists and are unique (you can see some of the designs here). Ours is called Tui after the native bird on the passenger side.

Our plan is to stay at some of the really good campgrounds here in NZ that have excellent facilities; kitchens, laundries, hot showers. And supplement those with some of the free DOC sites and some hotels along the way when we're fed up of the van. We went to have some food whilst we were waiting to get our van ready, they needed to fit a new tap to the sink in our 'kitchen'. All fed (excellent paninis, coffee and hot chocolate at a place on the harbour front) and it was time for the off. We were heading directly to Rotorua, about a four hour drive away as on Saturday, Cliff will be running his first marathon.

We stopped for dinner (and for Cliff to do his final 20 minute training run) in Hamilton; about halfway. We ate some really good pizza and minestrone in the Piccolla's Italian restaurant. At the end of the meal the lady owner gave Liam a book about NZ's 'off the beaten track' destinations. A really lovely thought which will give us all some ideas about where we'd like to spend the next 97 days.

It was late and rather than head straight onto Rotorua, we found the nearest campground and settled down for the inaugural night in the van. Comfy.