Yes i am a flashpacker and proud of it. Well, says the Lonely Planet anyway. This is so because of the posh car/van we are going to move into today, apparently we aren't ruffing it like normal backpackers. I would like to see a Lonely Planet writer dare to call me a flashpacker when it is 5 in the morning, dark, and i am in my PJ's having a wee at the side of a road.

Anyway, we landed in Auckland on Saturday bright and early. The flights were fine, the BA staff were scarily nice to us, it was like something out of the pod people, any moment i expected one of them to turn into a hideous monster so i pussyfooted around them the whole time, it was all awfully polite. We were also upgraded. Yes, it still happens! We turned left. Ha to all you minions i thought as i sauntered onto the plane. We even had a celeb! Oh yes, Lionel Richie, apparently he walked passed us but no one noticed him. The flight took 11hours to LAX with a 5 hour stop over and then another 11 hours to Auckland. We didn't sleep on the first flight but basically passed out on the second leg.

Auckland was pretty rainy when we arrived, we had a good 5 hours to kill when we arrived until we could check in so wandered around the streets with our backpacks looking ever so backpakery. It is a pretty hilly city, so i was rather knackered by the time we hiked the mountain up to our hostel but it was worth it as once again we were...upgraded! Oh yes, we are flashpackers.

The lock on our basic room was broken so they had to give us a nice room with ensuite as all the other cheapo rooms were booked! Yay.

We spent the rest of our first day asleep to be honest. Rather tiring flying to the other end of the world you know.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went on the Lonely Planet walk around the city and spent a good 3 hours in the Auckland art gallery looking at an exhibition of a famous NZ artist. It was alright, I'm not one for galleries unless i like the artist, but Tim enjoyed it. The city is the biggest in NZ, but it is like a ghost town to be honest, i have never been in such a quiet city, it livened up at lunch time on Sunday when all of a sudden it felt like the whole city came out for their Sunday lunch, then they all vanished again once they finished dessert.

Today at lunch time we pick up our little car/van, we are getting more and more nervous at the prospect of living in this thing but i am sure it will be an adventure. We bought a road map of the country and have decided to firstly drive up north to the Bay of Islands. Not sure what is there but the book tells us to go so we shall. There is possibly whale watching, and Tim says general prettiness to be seen there. After that we may keep going all the way to the top just coz we can and then make our way all the way back down to Auckland again.

Well we are going to check out of our hostel now and wander around the streets, and probably another art gallery like hobos for a couple of hours before we can drive off into the sunset like Sonny and Cher or something like that. Don't know how often we will be able to log our little hobo like adventures as we aren't flashpackery enough to have a laptop and wireless with us but you never know we might find a quaint dial up connection somewhere along the way...