We woke early to make our way to the airport. Australia had been a fantastic stop and gave us a chance to see beautiful scenery and unique wildlife, meet up with old friends as well as make many new ones.
Having spent the night close to the airport, our Uber driver (for the first during our travels, a woman) got us there in nothing flat. Ever since our flight to Dubai, Emirates has been the gold standard for the kids, so they were looking forward to this trip to New Zealand. In-flight movies, games, stuffed animals, blankets and travel bags are hard to complain about.
New Zealand, like Australia works hard to protect its unique environment from foreign and invasive species. After quickly filling out our entry forms, we started to worry that the left over spices from Australia would be a problem. And I was starting to think we should have checked the "yes" box regarding sports and outdoor equipment. It specifically calls out any used outdoor equipment ... including footwear! Hmm, I'm pretty sure everyone coming off the plane had used their footwear outside before arriving. In the end, we were all good. Guess our shoes looked clean enough.
The rest of the day was pretty much spent getting set up with our new camper van. Although not as new as the one in Australia, we were relieved to see it was a couple feet longer and had a much better layout making it possible to sit five or more in the back. We spent a couple hours making sure we knew how to install the table, set up the beds and figured out how and where to store our bags. We were quite pleased with our clever solution. One of the three upper sleeping sections would be slid to the front of the van and dedicated to permanent bag storage, while the other two sections would still let the shorties -- no, not Meg and me! -- sleep on top. Of course, this would leave the three adults to snuggle downstairs.
The TOP campground we found was packed but had a great playground where the kids hung out while Meg and I stocked up the "pantry" for De Ann’s arrival. We can hardly wait.
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