Our First Week in NZ

It’s been a week since we landed in Auckland and wow, what a wonderful time we’ve had! 

Jacquie and Richard gave us an amazing welcome to New Zealand and helped us find our feet. So far we’ve had the chance to explore Auckland city, as well as some of the coast and even managed to squeeze in a few holes of golf - much to Nathan’s enjoyment. Spotting some dolphins and a ray whilst out for coffee down at the seafront really topped off an awesome first few days.

Later in the week we were able to tick off a huge milestone for our trip by securing a campervan - a 2007 Toyota Hiace! The van has been recently converted, meaning it’s clean, fresh and a blank canvas for us to make our own. This meant that the latter half of the week was spent excitedly gathering items like bedding and kitchen equipment for our van. We were lucky enough to be donated a lot of items by Jacquie and her neighbours, and the rest of the items we managed to pick up in either ‘op shops’ (what they call charity shops over here) or bargain warehouses.

With all of the shopping and sorting complete, we finally set off on our adventure on Sunday, heading north into the aptly named ‘Northland’. An empty gas canister nearly brought disaster on the first night but luckily the public BBQs in the Regional Park we were staying in came to the rescue - showing once again that hiccups along the way only enrich the adventure!

All smiles so far, van life is pretty sweet!

Taking the Leap

We set off from Devon on Friday night, bags packed, or overpacked in Josie’s case, and had everything sorted - we were ready for our adventure! Despite a flat tyre on the M4 and an incident involving a faulty hotel-room television that Nathan would rather no go into, we made it to Gatwick airport for 9am Saturday morning. But that’s where the real fun started.

We arrive at the check-in desk to be greeted with “Do you have your immigration information?” To which we dutifully handed over our New Zealand visa information to a confused look. It transpired that it was Canadian immigration they wanted to check even though we weren’t leaving the airport in Canada but planning on getting a connecting flight to New Zealand. Alas, despite all of our meticulous planning we hadn’t considered that we would need a visa to transit through Canada, ooopps. We quickly applied for Canadian visas online and sat and waited for that oh-so-important email. Thankfully, the Canadians came through with two visas in under 5 minutes and we made it past check-in. Emotional goodbyes ensued and we were on our way!

We could hardly contain our excitement as we boarded our BA flight to Vancouver and the constant supply of G&Ts and ice cream throughout the flight ensured those excitement levels only grew and grew. After almost 10 hours we arrived in Canada, picked up our bags and spent a few hours outside the airport in the Vancouver sun before checking in with Air New Zealand - which thankfully proved much less stressful than at Gatwick. We were able to grab a few hours of sleep at the start of the long journey south before waking up in time to watch the Rugby World Cup live on the plane, which the Kiwis especially enjoyed as Fiji beat the Aussies just as we landed in Auckland. We had a smooth transition through NZ immigration and biosecurity and met Jaquie at the airport, who took us back to her place for a well-deserved nap after almost 2 days of travel.

Three Days to Go!

Wow! Summer has flown by and it's now only three days until we set off on our adventure.

Thanks to everyone who's taken time to say goodbye and wish us well over the past few weeks. It's been lovely to see so many of you in person and receive messages from those who live far away.

Nathan has now said goodbye to London and moved all of his things down to his parents in Devon, meaning the real packing has begun! So far it's proven quite a tricky job to fit my entire life into a 55L rucksack, although I've managed to save some space after mum reassured me that they'll have baked beans down under, so those can be crossed off the packing list 😅.

We've also been watching Griff's Great Kiwi Road Trip on Netflix to get in the spirit of things, along with some suggestions of places to visit on our trip. If you have any recommendations, please do let us know - we're keen to see and do as much as possible.

The excitement is really building now... I keep picturing being sat on Gatwick runway waiting to take off and trying to imagine how we're going to feel. But like with any big adventure, I guess we're just going to have to jump in feet first!

See you at the airport!