Auckland and Christchurch (19 - 21 February 2008)
Arriving in Auckland was like a fresh summers breeze after travelling through Asia for nearly six months. Besides the fact that it actually was summer and that there was a fresh breeze, some other differences stood out immediately. To name one, when I went to the toilet at the Auckland airport, I was sitting on the loo with the used toilet paper in my hand looking around for the bin to chuck the paper in. my first thoughts were that once again someone forgot to put a bin in the cubicle. But alas, here we do not need that stupid old bin-system! Well, back to civilisation it was - flushing toilets and proper sewage disposal and all.
As soon as we made our way through customs (a friendly customs official, can you believe?) we had some complimentary coffee (can you believe it yet again?) and made our way to the i-site information booth. The people here are so on top of things that I felt like asking them something tricky like “what is the circumference of the moon?” just to check if they really do know everything 
They helped us with booking flights to Christchurch, booking accommodation in Christchurch and securing the cheapest van through Wicked Campers.
To kill some time before flying to Christchurch, we walked to the nearest supermarket to buy something for lunch. O my word! I could not believe how expensive everything is here. A bread costs anything from $1,10 to $5,00. I considered asking the cashier if the bread was gold dusted or what? We ended up buying the cheapest items we could find and no drinks: two bananas, a wrap and a sandwich (a total of $7,33, that’s nearly R50,00). Okay, so the civilised culture was a fantastic feeling but at this cost?!
I will try to limit my moaning about prices to once per post, so this was it for this post.
On arrival in Christchurch, we took the bus into town. We were quite surprised at how cold it was for this time of year. It is supposed to be high summer in NZ and I was clinging to my fleece jacket in a struggle to fight off the icy wind. Driving through this ‘city’ was like a time warp. There were no rubbish in the streets, the beautifully kept parks had people picnicking on the grass, the houses had no burglar proof bars and many had no fences. Some cars were parked on the sideway, standing unattended with windows wide open. I clicked - this is how it is supposed to be.
We arrived at X-Base our hostel for two nights. We took the cheapest option available - a dorm room with shared bathroom. This dorm room was a lot nicer than most of our accommodation over the last half a year, but the entire building was swarming with noisy teenagers. I realised that I must really be getting old, because I found those teens so annoying (or maybe I was just jealous of their perfect outfits, blow-dried hair and make-up). We were so tired after travelling for just over 40 hours, so we treated ourselves to a shared KFC mini-meal and went to bed at 21:00. I woke the next morning at 10:00, with two of the six other room mates beautifying themselves for the day ahead (the others had already left the room). We had slept right through all six of them coming into the room the previous night and leaving again in the morning!
The earliest that we could get our van was on the 21st of Feb, so on the 20th, we did the Lonely Planet walking tour and some other local sightseeing. We went to the museum and the art gallery as there was no entry costs. Then we sat in the park and had lunch - bread with chips and a Coke
The expensiveness of this country now only started to settle in; I was stunned at how much people have to fork out for day to day living costs.
This was basically our first night in NZ (the previous night does not count as we were walking zombies) and I was delighted to see that the sun only sets after 20:00. I still have no idea what time it rises, because we always wake up after 8:00 That evening Eon made delicious chops on the BBQ! NZ was off on a good start.
The next day we collected our van from Wicked Campers. The Wicked vans all have very interesting and sometimes explicit paintings on the rear and sides. Our van’s name is Cream (after the band) and on the rear is reads: “THERE IS A TIME AND A PLACE FOR EVERYTING - 8 O’CLOCK, MY PLACE, EVERYTHING”. The funniest van that I saw on the road was driven by a grey-haired old couple and the van read ‘I am a loyal student of Karma Sutra’ Hahaha!
The vans are normal Kombi size and it has a table in the back that folds down to a bed and it also has a little basin and a coolbox (or as they call it here a chilly bin) and all the necessary cutlery. We popped into the Pak N Save to stock up on some groceries and then we hid the road towards Lake Tekapo in the centre of the South island.
Click on image to view the Christchurch gallery: