Auckland, New Zealand. The Internet’s OK, but you can’t beat booking “on spec”.

First we had to get our boots cleaned on the way in. No foreign dirt here, thank you.

We arrived on 2 January to a city with one million inhabitants, yet it seemed someone had exploded a Neutron bomb before we got here, there was like NO ONE anywhere.
Our goal is to take NZ as it comes, at our own pace, and in a camper van, the “de regeur” way to see the country. We’d heard a horror story from a Danish guy who told us that he’d tried to book a van over the Internet, only to discover that everything from the South Island was booked, so all he could get was one week in the North Island, then hired a car for the South. Hmm. Should we be worried?
After turning the first corner in Auckland we found a place called “Escape rentals”, hiring out - camper vans. (sorry, can’t find the web address just now). This young guy was great. He fixed us up with a camper for half the going rate of the larger companies - just that there’s less advertising on the side of the van. He also fixed us a cheap car so we could head north to check out one of NZ’.s must sees, The Bay of Islands, in the north of the North Island. See next post…