On Monday (August 27), I decided that if I was going to find a vehicle for us, I would have to go to Auckland and leave my sugar momma Roberta back in Palmerston North to work. I had spent many hours searching on Trademe (a site much like our autotrader) and there seemed to be the most selection around Auckland which is around 500 kms away. I looked at the jetstar website and got a flight from Wellington to Auckland for only $35! I then got a $15 bus ticket from Palmerston to Wellington which is around 150 kms to the south. I got into Auckland at 11:30 that night and grabbed a shuttle to my hostel. I was booked in for a 8 person shared room (because its the cheapest) and it was really fun using the light on my telephone to try and find the only bed without a person in it. Not. But surprise surprise it was a top bunk right beside the door that I seemed to miss right off the bat.
I woke next morning and started calling people to view some vans. Two of the ones I was the most interested in had been sold the day before. Just my luck. Auckland is a city with 1.5 million people and these vans were located in all different parts of the city. The first guy was nice enough to come pick me up and take me to the van he was selling. There was a few more vans to look at in that particular area. I looked the cans over and took a few for test drives. There was a few interesting moments while test driving, since I'm not used to this whole driving on the wrong side of the road. These included almost turning right in front of someone and putting on the window wipers almost every time I wanted to use the turning signal. And then there was those damn round abouts where no one really knows what is going on. Although it wasn't smooth, I made it through the day without damaging anything. I probably walked 15 kms and travelled on many city buses for over 50 kms in the day. By 9 p.m. I was ready to hit the sack.
Wednesday morning I got up feeling a bit refreshed. The owner of the hostel told me to check out the backpacker's carworld to see what they had. Its just basically a place where people who want to sell there vehicle can park it. I took a look at a few but none were really intriguing me that much. They did offer me a lot of good advice on buying vehicles though. I decided that afternoon to buy the first one I had seen the day before and made an arrangement to him to pick me up on Thursday morning. I hit up an Irish pub that night and listened to some good live music.
Thursday morning Robert picked me up from the hostel and drove me out to the van. He drove me all around to get insurance, an AA membership, and to get RUCs. In New Zealand, diesel is like 65 cents cheaper than gas so they made up a road user charge (RUC). You pay like $50 for per 1000 kms. If you get caught without having paid for them, the fine is 3x the amount of kms you are over. Just so you know gas is $2.22/litre and diesel is like $1.60/litre! And we thought the prices were high in Canada!
Finally Roberta and I were the proud new owners of a 1992 diesel Toyota Lucida. Take a look at this beauty.
As you can see, it has all the back seats removed a has a bed in it. It came with a bunch of camping equipement as well.
After the purchase I made my back to Palmerston North 500 kms away. It didn't take too long to get the hang of driving on the left but it still feels ackward. I seen a lot of cool country on the way down and found some places where we need to take our time to explore later in our trip.
Lake Taupo
Mount Rupehu covered by clouds
I made it back to Palmerston North in one piece. When I got back everyone was sitting at the table drinking champagne so I joined in. Alex had just found out after 13 years of schooling she had passed her human pathology exam. That makes vet school sound like a breeze.
Over and out.
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