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We flew into Auckland and made our way to the All Seasons hotel, where thankfully Ant has booked us a room with one double bed! lol...
The following morning we found the Car Market and started to have a look for a van. We found one that suited us and had it checked by the local garage for GBP75. When we got the paperwork back it seemed they just used it to cover themselves and everything was circled which apparently meant 'could need fixing soon'. The woman there was also a little short with us when we asked if the sellers might budge on the price but she said there was no chance so we told her we'd be back in the morning.
We hadn't really thought about how we were going to pay until we had the chance of buying a van and spent the next day running around trying to sort out funds. We opened a NZ bank account so the money could be transferred (which took about ten minutes! Safe!). Then we realised it would take days for money to arrive and we needed it now! The banks wouldn't accept my card because it was a Maestro and finally found a bank that took Ant's and managed to get the money out. Short of carrying around a few grand in cash for 6 months, I'm not really sure what we would have done if they hadn't accepted any of our cards but we were just pleased to fix it in the end!
By this point, we had missed the 9.30am cut off when the van we'd looked at would be put back on the market. So we decided to keep looking on websites and in papers and if we hadn't found anything by Sunday, we'd go to the weekly car market in Ellerslie.
In the hotel, they had a nice little cafe so we had our breakfast there a few days. On one of the days, I ordered myself scrambled eggs on toast and Ant a croissant with butter and jam. It took a while for the Japanese guy to work out what I was saying and when I got some food it was a croissant with scrambled eggs and ham. I took it back to the counter and said could I have a croissant and said i'd eat what he'd given me - to keep the peace of course! About 2 minutes into eating it, I regretted that decision because amongst all the eggs and ham was jam and butter! Gak.... Ant laughed at me whilst I ate it anyway, scraping off as much jam as poss but he still hadn't had any food.
He went to ask where his croissant was and was quite surprised to find out he was getting scrambled eggs on toast. Again, nevermind! Karma got him back for laughing at me though, because the guy had put jam and butter on his eggs too! Absolutely rank, take it from me, Jam + Eggs = No!
On one of the evenings we decided to treat ourselves to a meal down by the harbour. We had stunning fish with a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, followed by a gorgeous plate of cheese with port (no jam and eggs!).
We also went to a Leonardo De Vinci exhibition which was really interesting. They had loads of his inventions, some which were interactive. All good.
Finally by Sunday morning, we were really ready to get a van and on our way. So we got up super early and got a taxi to the Car Market. We were there 45 minutes before it started but there were already plenty of vans there so we took a quick walk around before deciding on a Mitsubishi Delica. The guy selling it was Hungarian and we got it in for a quick check. It needed about $600 worth of work done to it to make it safer so we got him to knock that off the price and drove away with our $2,700 van. He'd also left a cool box in there, a fishing rod, double matress and a thick blanket (with a lion on it - tidy!). Job done! We bought a few more bits (including a sat nav!) and the next day took the van to a mobile mechanic to make sure everything would run smoothly.
It was such a relief to finally be making our way out of Auckland and we were really excited about seeing Chrissie and her family in Rotorua.
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