the start of my time in 'a nicer England'

Well we have now arrived in New Zealand. The flight over was very nice and i slept, ate and listened to my m pod however the check in and security bit before hand was not so relaxed. Basically we had very little time to pack our bags before we had to go to the airport as the flight was at 9.15 meaning we had to be at the airport for 7.15 meaning we had to wake up at 5.45!!!!! so in my hand luggage was a very sharp and pretty dangerous object which did not go down very well with the x ray machine! after my bag being stared at for a long time and sent through the x ray machine a couple more times they decided to empty my full bag on the table in front of me. not only was this pretty annoying but i also had some things in there which caused a bit of embarrassment to me such as lots of rubbish from a long time ago a bottle of suncream and some cosmetic pads i had recently bought! the cosmetic pads particularly seemed to amuse the security guard who had, worryingly, started to put rubber gloves on! i thought i was going to be violated in possibly the worst way imaginable! but it turned out to be ok and i got to keep my dangerously sharp object!

When we landed in Christchurch we had to go and pick up our car for the next month. This was far easier than picking up the campervans and after half an hour we were ready to drive off. There is one slight twist and that is that the car is an automatic! it hasn't caused any problems yet but whenever i slow down my hand automatically goes out to grab the non existent gearstick and my foot tries to press the non existent clutch! pretty amusing! Anyway after a short drive we reached our first stop the Ellis family. They have been sooooo lovely to us 4 ragamuffins! they gave us a huge cooked meal (lasagna and pancakes) and we all have beds with CLEAN linen!!!!!!!! and they have carpets! for the whole 2 months i have not felt the luxury of carpet between the toes and my have i missed that feeling!! they also gave us a good idea of where to travel and some pretty tourist spots so that should be good! and they offered to have us for one more night which we are more than happy to oblige to!!

Anyway thats all for now

From the land of the hobbit goodbye