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Our flight from Sydney landed at 10.30 Friday night and we were finally in New Zealand! We were both very excited, and luckily for us getting off the plane and getting our bags was very quick. As soon as we left the airport to catch a shuttle bus to the hostel we had booked for that night, the coldness hit us! It was definetly very different weather than what we had been used to for the past seven and a half months. The taxi took us straight to our hostel by about 11.30 and as soon as we had booked in we just crashed. It had been a very long day travelling and we were both really tired.
We got up the next morning and wrapped up warm in our jumpers and scarves, which felt a bit weird, and then went out for a quick walk around and to get some breakfast. We hadn't really seen much the night before as it had been dark, and in the daylight Christchurch looked very English. That wasn't a bad thing though! We walked down to Cathedral Square which is the main centre of the town and stopped at a cafe. After that we had to get a taxi back to near the airport where were picking up our campervan. We had decided to travel all around the country on our own in a van and we were so excited to pick it up. We knew that we would be able to see so much more doing it this way instead of on coaches. I think doing the Greyhound in Australia put us off for life! The campervan we got wasn't massive but it was big enough for us. It had a mini kitchen in the back with everything we would need, and the bench inside that changed into the bed. We got sleeping stuff and even extra duvets as it was going to be so cold. It was love at first sight! Once we had been shown around it, done a damage check and signed everything we were off! We had to drive back to town to pick up our bags from the hostel and stopped for some lunch and to have a bit more of a wander around the city. Justin drove first as I wasn't sure I would be able to drive around without crashing it yet. We found a campsite for the night, after getting a bit lost first, and sorted out all of our stuff in the van. We had done some food shopping on the way so had dinner at the camp site that night. They had a TV room too so we went there for a couple fo hours before having our first night sleep in the van. It was actually really comfortable, even if a little cold. We learned we would have to use more covers the next night!
We left fairly early in the morning and droved back into town to the Botanic Gardens. We had a walk around there for a bit and went to the Christchurch museum for a couple of hours too (it was free!) It was really cold, but still a really nice day and surprisingly sunny. We knew that we were going to like it here. After grabbing some lunch in town and walking back to the van, we started the first leg of our drive around New Zealand!
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