In Auckland

Selling a Car
As you probably know, we’re selling a car. To do that, you either have to sell it off to a dealer (you won’t get much if you do that), put an ad in a local newspaper (you won’t get many reactions if you do that) or go to a carmarket (bingo). So we went to a carmarket yesterday, right in the middle of Auckland. Strange how a patch of undeveloped, barren land can survive between all the skyscrapers. Oh well. So we were there at the market from 8.30 to 12.30 and all in all we had about two people who were interested. Bugger. So today, we decided to be smart and slash $200 off the price. We drove in and the first one interested was the guy at the entrance giving the directions. We parked, Nienke went for a coffee at one of the numerous stands and before she was back there were already half a dozen people swarming around my precious Corolla. I went for a testdrive with a potential buyer before my cappuccino was even drinkable and the car was sold before I had finished it. Wow.
It was, ofcourse, a much more professional market: a dozen people giving directions in stead of one, coffee stands everywhere and change of ownership facilities on site. Were there were about 25 cars yesterday including vans, there were at least 250 today under $5000 and the same amount over $5000, and there were more buyers than sellers, unlike at the other carmarket. Well, how should I’ve known that that one would be such a waste of time? But I reckon I could have gotten a lot more for it: I bought it for $4300, sold it for $3400. The price was $3800 on Saturday, $3600 today, but I could’ve added instead of slashed $200. Oh well… The dollar’s really strong right now, so that means I’ll get more euro’s for them.

In Auckland
We’ve been in Auckland for a week now, and it’s surprising how much you can do here. We’ve been to a really bad movie (Black Sheep) and up into the Sky Tower (187m in 30 seconds) on Friday, to a carmarket, Geoff (A cousin of Ian’s) and the Stardome Observatory & Planetarium yesterday and today we sold our car and it’s not even noon yet. We’re going to Whangarei today to finish our diving course, which I really dread because it means driving on the motorway a fair bit. Like Geoff says, Europeans really like driving on the motorway because it reminds them of home: all the slow people are in the right lane. It’s Sunday though, so we should be alright, but we’ll have to get back here on Tuesday…

I’ve made some really cool photo’s of & from the Sky Tower by the way, but I’m too lazy to connect my camera for one photo and the others are all a big panorama so I’ll have to stitch those together first. You’ll see it in a few days when I get home. Wow, only four days left now…