The start of our campervan adventure!

I can't actually believe this day has arrived! Almost 9 months we've been in New Zealand and from the get go we've talked of travelling in a campervan and after so many set backs and changes to our plan today is the day this dream finally started. Firstly we had to pack up all our belongings and enjoy one last breakfast delivered by the breakfast fairies. Nick has really loved the breakfasts here and I think he's going to miss it a lot. We waved goodbye to our mini paradise and set off on the road back to Christchurch. We were collecting our van at 12 so that gave us time to go and get a few last minute things we needed. Soon enough the time came to pick up our future travelling companion, Transi, named because she's lost the T at some point! We're so pleased with it. It's got everything we could possibly need or want for the next three months. We spent almost 2 hours going over all the paperwork and doing a damage report. There's a lot of general cosmetic damage that they don't seem to care about and a few dents. The worst is the window screen which has 5 chips including one in the large shape of a C. Apparently you don't have to get them fixed or replace the window unless they are directly in the driver's view or cause a large crack. We took photos of all the damage even the stuff the woman wasn't writing down so hopefully we return it in the same state. We got the van very cheap but this did mean it came with a $1800 excess. They offered insurance which takes the excess down to $0 but for $20 a day over the duration we have the van for this amounts to around $1800 dollars anyway. Instead we've taken out our own travel insurance which covers us for rental vehicles and paid the excess with the hope of getting most if not all of it back. You don't have to have car insurance here so rather annoyingly if we have an accident and it's not our fault but the other driver isn't insured we might not even be able to get the money from them and still have to pay for any damage to the vehicle. Hopefully nothing will happen and we plan to avoid parking near cars to limit the risk of anything going badly. After collecting some snow chains and an atlas we hit the road, Nick in the van and myself in the car. We had a straightforward route out of Christchurch but unfortunately Nick missed me indicating right to turn off at traffic lights so he missed the turning. It took about 15 minutes for us to be reunited and for him to figure out what road he was meant to be on, a little scary for your first time driving the van. The rest of the journey was smooth but long and eventually we made it back to farm. It took us almost 3 hours to sort out our things deciding what to take and what to leave in the car. This was because everyone wanted to check the van out and have a chat. Cassidy and Eliza came to have a nosey as well. I gave Cassidy a hug and told her that I missed her and she responded with the sassiest voice saying "yeah you did", both hilarious and adorable at the same time. She's promised to take good care of the car for us and with our stuff inside it went under a car cover outside Bruce and Candy's house until a garage is freed up in a few days for it. Then we set off on our journey and because it was so late by this point we had subway for tea before finding our first freedom camping ground in Winchester and reminding ourselves how bad long drop toilets can smell!Read more