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Published: October 5th 2007
On Wednesday late morning we left the Comfort Inn Hotel and drove to the car rental depot at LAX to drop off Dodge the Bodged Porsche; no problems with the car at drop-off....Did we need all those waivers??! Got on the complimentary shuttle bus to the terminal and waited around for the Qantas check-in desk to open. Stood for about 2 hours in the check-in queue to get our boarding passes. The guy in front of us thought he could check-in his wife and kids without them being present ... sigh ... so he had to go and get them from the food hall... roll eyes, tap fingers, sigh...
Finally got our boarding passes. Watched the baggage handler hurl our bags from the X-ray machine onto the conveyer belt; that must be on the person specification for baggage handler posts, 'must be able to hurl bags long distances with complete disregard for their contents'.
Spent a further few hours in the food hall before going through security to get to our departure gate where we waited another few hours, watching the sun set over LA. And with all this air-conditioning, changes of beds, and diet of root beer, Hersheys and fast food, we're both ill, sneezing and coughing - a picture of health!
We landed in Auckland this morning, Friday 5th, after almost 13 hours in the air; we've lost Thursday! We're staying at the Centra Hotel, near Auckland airport for a couple of nights, to recover from colds and jet lag.
Steve rang the Kea campervan sales depot this morning and they offered to come and pick us up from the hotel to have a look at their available stock - no time like the present! The Kea sales manager had fortunately promised us, by email back in November, a buy-back deal whereby they'll buy the van back off us at the end of the 6 months at 80% of the original price; or, we can still try to sell it ourselves, or even ship it back to the UK. It works out much cheaper than hiring a camper, or hiring a car and paying for accommodation.
Kea do their own conversions for all their rental fleet and they sell on their ex-rental stock after a couple of years, refurbishing and servicing the vans for sale. They had 3 2-berth vans available, a VW Tourer with flip-top roof - a nice vehicle but tiny inside, with a very small bed area with it being a side-conversion, only really suitable for short trips away (definitely would kill each other by the end of 6 months); and 2 very similar Ford Transits, one with slightly fewer miles on the clock.
We went for the Transit with fewer miles. It's a 2005 turbo diesel model, with 93,000 kilometers on the clock, priced at $69,000 NZD. They wouldn't negotiate the price but they offered to fit an awning and solar panels on the van as freebies instead. It's got 2 bench seats at the back that convert into a huge bed area, and a table, gas stove, fridge, sink, microwave, gas heater, air-conditioned cab, shower and toilet, and loads of storage. It's a no-frills conversion but it's perfect for what we want.
We paid a deposit and we pick the van up on Tuesday or Wednesday after they've fitted the awning and solar panels. We've bought a van!!!! Photos to follow....
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cathy & jo
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why isn't babs with you? thank you for our lovely photos and glad to see the washing line in use. But what about your sporks?! Surely they're just as essential. Careless of you to lose thursday. Good luck with the van and careful of the poopy hose...