Hey everyone,
After I left you in Nelson with a full description of the wonders of Abel Tasmen I spent a few more days in Nelson. The hostel there is pretty amazing and I got my arm twisted into spending another night there as it was Halloween and they were hosting a big party. It was a really cool party, everyone dressed up and after a few hours the hostel paid for a armada of taxis to come and pick everyone up to go into town.
The next day, after dragging myself out of bed and saying goodbye to the Abel Tasmen crew as well as everyone else, I headed out. I followed the road down the east coast, through some really amazing wine country near Blenheim and then finally to the ocean. I decided to push through to Christchurch instead of stopping in Kaikoura as although it is gorgious, I had been on the beach for a long time and I was getting anxious about selling the van.
I pulled into Christchurch, found a hostel that had off-street parking and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and spent the morning putting up flyers in various hostels and internet cafes. After I had hit most of the message boards, I made my way down to the car market and signed up to be there.
The deal at the market is you pay $65 for three days of parking, then sit near your vehicle and wait for people to come by and look at it. There is always an interesting group of people selling there and the place has its own customs and culture, ie. if you sell you are then required to bring in a case of beer for everyone else to enjoy. When I got there, there was two British girls and a couple from Germany. Everyone was really cool and the first couple days past pretty quick. pretty soon both sold and were replaced by others, we had a couple from France with a van similar to mine who immediately began to use nasty tactics to sell theirs over mine. I walked by one morning during their sales pitch to someone that was interested in mine and heard them tell them how terrible diesel was and how they didnt want that. This of course was really annoying as the car market is stressful enough without having to deal with crap like that, soon enough they sold and in the meantime didnt make any friends with the other sellers. By this time I had been there about 5 days with no end in sight and with no money I was getting pretty worried. Luckily Jenny (one of the germans) returned and helped me scrub out the van so it was in mint condition, she also brought me cookies so to cheer me up from the depressing wait for buyers.
As I arrived at the market I was expecting to sell right away without having to wait, this optimism lasted until about the 6th day. By this time I started believing the stories on the wall, the place is full of stories drawn on the wall about disasters and lost money. At this point I was getting really frustrated and hated the whole thing as well as being in Christchurch. I had no choice but to keep going everyday, being as upbeat as possible to potential buyers and hoping that the day would come. I became the old timer pretty quick, everyone except me sold so all the new people came to me with questions and problems about selling. Again it was a good crowd so the days werent too bad, it was only when the market shut at night that I got frustrated because another day had passed without a sale. Soon enough I was at nine days, really frustrated but there wasnt anything I could do. I chatted with everyone in the morning and then went for a quick walk. When I arrived back, the guy selling a car beside my van was standing beside mine talking to someone. As I walked up he introduced me to "Julien" from France, who was interested in the van. Everyone was rooting for me to sell so they were all positive as I took him through the van before moving back and letting him poke around and ask questions. He asked if we could go for a ride which was great as it was my first test drive, we also talked about some problems (like the brake pads that need replacing) but there wasnt anything big at all. By the time we finished out test drive he turned to me and asked if I would take $2800 instead of $3000 because of the brake pads that needed replacing. At this point I had been at the market for WAY too long so I woulda taken almost anything over $2000 so I quickly agreed.
I originally bought Waka Tui for $2400 in Auckland, then proceeded to sink around $1200 into making sure it ran well by the time I was finished with it. This all seemed to pay off because although I lost $800 on it, that is a small price to pay for a van for 6 months. Needless to say I was ecstatic about selling, I had been eating out of the free food bin at the hostel for a week and was ready for a good meal. I treated myself to an amazing lamb pizza and a big pint of Guinness, and then met some people back at the hostel to go out. After a night of much needed celebration I sit here feeling a little under the weather but quite happy. I spent the morning wandering the Botanic Gardens and watching a marching band in Cathedral square. I am going to fly up to Auckland on monday, spend a day up there and then jump back on the plane bound for Fiji. I dont know if I will update before I leave. So unless something worth writing about happens, I will hopefully be back on in about a week filling you all in on the wonders of life on the beach.
Cheers,
-Jesse
