Van sold and heading for the beach

---

I spoke with a couple in the hostel yesterday who are also selling their car. The stress of trying to sell a vehicle on a tight time line is horrible. In their case, they brought their car in to the backpacker's car market a few days after us and they have a flight to Australia on Saturday.
With all that has happened, I fully expect to get a call from the buyer telling me that he has backed out. Fortunately, no such call comes and we arrive at the car market about 15 minutes early. The buyer is already there and the van is across the street at the garage. My heart sinks as I imagine that there might be something wrong with the van. Fortunately, it turns out it is only there to create some space on the show floor.

The transaction goes smoothly and we hand over some additional maps to help him out. It is an amazing sense of relief to be done with this deal. In the end, buying and selling the vehicle has cost us way less than it would to have rented, but I am not sure if all the stress it has brought makes it something worth doing again.

Our next stop is to a car rental place where we save a few bucks renting a late model station wagon. We head to the bank to transfer the big wad of money back to Canada, only to find that they haven't given us all the details we need to ask of our bank in terms of transit numbers and our Toronto branch appears to be closed for the day. We manage something akin to a Western Union transfer which will allow Evy's mother to pick up the money, though what we really wanted was to deposit back into our account.
The kids are not impressed with our new vehicle. It is very tight space wise and beeps when you back up ! Nevertheless, we manage to get all our stuff in and head out of the city.

Auckland is a nice city, but we always seem to be there for “business” rather than pleasure (i.e. buying the van, selling the van). It feels great to be on the road again full of green hills, sheep, and spring flowers. We are heading to an area of coast on the East side of the North Island, a bit south of Auckland. It is a relatively short drive (only about 2 ½ hours) but the new car is very cramped.

We arrive at the town of Hahei and find the campground that we wanted to check out. It seems so summer like when we arrive with the sea breeze and the flowers and shrubs in full bloom. The Hahei Holiday resort is quite booked up so we will not be able to stay 4 days as we intended, but we book a cabin for the first night and then a whole large cottage for the next two nights.

After living in one small tiny room for 6 nights in Auckland, the place seems luxurious in a garden like setting.

---