It was a simple plan. Buy a van in Sydney and sell it in Cairns.
We had good advice from several dealers in Sydney who told us that Cairns was the place to sell the because it has a new outdoor car market, and travellers fly to sunnier Cairns at this time of year.
We arrived three days ago to a cyclone damaged, grey, tropical stormy Cairns. It felt like one of out winters days, dark and grey and we found ourselves in a dire situation. The car market had shut down & hundreds of desperate travellers wondered the rain soaked streets looking for spaces on noticeboards to post their adds to entice non-existant backpackers before their flights home.
After talking to sellers in week three of trying to sell their vehicles we found people slashing their prices to less than half, our plan wasn't so simple anymore.
But we were enthusiastic and printed dozens of adds, flyers and posters which we plastered on every notice board, and we approached any strangers that loitered near the boards (mostly turned out to be other sellers though). We tried hard and even thought of going to the airport and handing our fliers to backpackers arriving into Oz. Unfortunately, despite our efforts day one ended with no calls and a sleepless night with lots to think about.
Day 2 was the start of a crazy Sam and Chris day. Our of bed by 8am, turned the key to the ignition and...rum rum.......rum.....nothing! The battery was flat even though we were sure we hadn;t left anything on.
We grabbed the yellow bearded smoking bin man to help us jump start the car & luckerly it started so we drove the drab streets of Cairns for 2 hours to charge the battery. Just as we parked up a dealer from Travellers Autobarn approached us and told us that he'd love to have our van on his forecourt so if we had any trouble selling her he'd make us an offer. He confirmed that competition was tough and that he'd had 5 backpers that morning wanting him to take their cars, but ours was the best he's seen in quite a while. Our eyes and our spirits lit up at the flattery until he told us what he'd pay, he offered $1500! That was $2700 less than our o.n.o. asking price.
We began to feel less pumped about the sale and deteriorated further when we realised that as fast as we put our posters up, someone was tearing them down. We spoke to other sellers that told us it was common and was happenning to them also, which meant that they had to spend the whole day replenishing their posters several times!
Shortly after a dealer confided that another dealer "a short french man" (again!)was tearing down the posters of the vans he was interested in. His tactic was to get you to drop the price lower and lower until just before your flight and then at the last minute he calls and offeres to buy it for peanuts (git!).
Deciding we had to make the van more attractive we headed for the motor registry to add 6 months registration to it. But when we went to start the car..rum rum....rum...nothing again!!!!A friendly Ozzie helped jump start her but it was still really embarrassing to break down opposite the notiboard with our FOR SALE sign.
Frustration got the better of us, we decided Cairns wasn;t for us and that we should soon start the 2500 kilometre journey back to Sydney in the morning. Having spent $300 on the registration and $70 on a new battery we where further from our goal, and closer to tears.
We gave up for the day and went back to our muddy campsite to eat reheated spag bowl. Whilst waiting for the food to heat on low we noticed two french guys (AGAIN!)laughing by the stove. When I smelt burning I realised what they thought was so funny, they had turnned to knob to high, food was burnt, they sniggered, we ate sandwiches.
Decision firmly made, Cainrs had beatten us so we'd set the alarm for 6am and head South to try our luck there. We felt glum, and after watching sreamy scenes of London in Love Actually we felt like we wanted a day at home (for the first time).
Suddenly half way through Australian Big Brother...brrrring brrrringgg...the phone rings!
It's a swiss gusy that wants to view that van tonight outside a club, so one hour later we'd worked our magic and sold the van for $4100!!!
That's $500 more than we'd paid for it in the first place, and just to put things into perspective in terms of what a high it was, this means that our accomodation in Oz for 2 and a half months only cost us 300 pounds! We can spend an awful lot longer on the slopes in NZ and South America now.
HOW lucky are we??!!*#GET IN!
The beers and the G&T's flowed last night, and we had the first meal out since Cafe Sydney 2 months ago.
'AVE IT!
Mr & Mrs Jam in SOLD HEAVEN
