We got one!!!!!!
However, before I explain, here are some pictures from yesterday: leaving Waiheke, Meg writing postcards surrounded by our luggage (we travel light!), and me in our delectable hostel room.
Now, to explain my Ghostbusters emotions.
After 6 days and about 20 campervans later, we have finally settled on (and bought) Peggy, a Toyota Hi-ace LWB.
She is fantastic. She has a high roof so you can pretty much stand up in her, and has a gas-powered fridge and a double gas stove to cook on, as well as a worktop, double bed, fishing equipment (yes, i'm going to learn to fish), and loads of storage and living space. She is diesel and 5 gear manual. We love her.
The owners were a english lady (Treacle) and a frenchman (laurent) and their 2 year old baby (Roxanne).
They have only had Peggy for 2 months, and Peggy has done quite a lot of mileage (like you would not believe), but we got her for a cut-down price so we can spend any money we have saved on her for any repairs/maintenance required. That's the plan.
We got up very early this morning, and got a few buses across town to Ellerslie racecourse where there is a car market every sunday. There were about 20 campervans, and we had already seen about half of them over the lat week ro so, so it was weird to see all the owners again. But we found Peggy and don't know how we hadn't heard or seen any ads for her before now. We took her for a test drive, and by 10am we had agreed a price and done the deal. We went back to their house (they were staying with their uncle in a posh suburb of Auckland) and signed the papers and then drove her back to ponsonby as OUR CAR. On the way back we stopped at a massive out-of-town warehouse and got a few necessary replacements for Peggy - we have treated ourselves to a new duvet, new storage boxes, some food, and cleaning stuff. We have come back to the hostel tonight to sort out all our things ahead of tomorrow. Of course we have been out for a celebratory beer, wine and tapas meal.
Tomorrow morning we are going to the garage to get a WOF (the equivalent of a poor man's MOT, required every 6 months), fill her up with diesel, go to the post office for final ownership details, and then we'll be heading off.
Our initial plan is to hread towards the Coromandel peninsula, to the east of Auckland. You can make out the outline of the mountains from Auckland, and it looks very dramatic, and is allegedly very unspoilt.
So we leave Auckland after about 10 days. We have been here slightly too long, but do quite like the city overall. But we just want to get out and see some proper countryside, hills, lakes, and forests. We don't know when we'll next get a chance to blog as we'll be dependent on when and where we find internet access in the rest of the country.
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