We’ve been busy getting details worked out for the first stop on our trip – New Zealand!

So far we have booked a hostel for our first night in Auckland.  We’ll head there and crash the first night and then the next day we will pick up our sleepervan which will be our home for the next 6.5 weeks.  We will be cruising around in the “ferns” van which we can park at campgrounds and sleep and cook in.  There’s lots of great hiking, beaches, and scenery, so I don’t think we’ll be getting bored!  We’re also going to use our driving time to listen to tons of Spanish language tapes to get prepared for our next couple of stops.

We’ll have about a week on the North Island and then take the ferry over to the South Island.  The plan is to spend Christmas in Christchurch and this is the one place we’ve made camping reservations ahead of time.  There’s a place to camp just a few blocks from the Cathedral in downtown Christchurch, so we figured we’d give it a go.  This location also provides computer access, so we know for sure we can get some blog posts up at that point.

After a month on the South Island we’ll head back up north for another week and a half before we go back to Auckland for our flight to South America.  Pretty flexible all in all, but it’s nice to know that we have all of the important details set now.