Horseshoe Dust

April 19 2010

Mood, dismal.

Well we have run into a very, very big problem. It started with the fact that we are trying to sell our car in what is considered the Low season. I knew that was going to happen, but I bought my car for a good enough deal that I figured that I should be able to counteract this by selling the car cheap enough that I would get some buyers. I had also planned to come back in a couple of days earlier so to possibly help our chances for selling the car. Well we buggered the timeline, for reasons you all know about, and then lightning started striking, and our horseshoes ran so dry out of luck that they crumbled in our hands and fell to pieces to the floor. This is when a conversation me and my travel companion came back to kick him in the groin, and me as well. Chris made an argument that there was no reason to watch the news because it doesn't really affect you I disagreed. Well some of you who watch the news know about a certain volcano that erupted in Iceland. And this is how the world news can affect you. First the volcano eruption has forced all the airports, and I mean ALL the airports in Europe to close. This has stopped all the European backpackers coming to Australia, which is the big buyer of backpacker cars in Australia. This has dropped the already tight backpacker market to nothing. But of course when it rains ash it pours, and I was about to get kicked in the groin again. I am starting to look for another market for the car, the problem is this is definitely a backpacker car as it is kind of old, but mostly it looks a bit rough, with a bit of rust. This car is mechanically sound, low km's, but it just kind of looks bad, the perfect backpacker car, not the perfect Australian citizen car. Thus another kick in the pants. I walked down and talked to some of the people sitting in their cars on Victoria Street (this is where a lot of backpackers sell their cars. They just sit in them all day waiting for someone to come and buy them) and they haven't sold anything in the last 4 days, and the number of 4X4's on the street went from 1 to 8 in the last 4 days. I also discovered that 2 days before we arrived the 4X4's were still selling for around 6000 dollars, now you can have your pick from 8 for about 4000 each, problem is still know one is buying. Of course the kicks to my privates just keep on coming. We had 2 escape plans as Chris's old room mate lives outside of Sydney, and we thought that we could maybe drop the car off at her place and maybe she could sell it for us. But that fell apart as Chris didn't get her phone number months ago when I asked him to, and when he did do it last week she hasn't checked her e-mail yet. Gerard knows someone in Sydney that he said that we could talk to hold onto it for us, unfortunately Gerard is in Bhutan hiking and thus I can't get a hold of him (not his fault, but you can see how this is starting to build up). We were thinking about transferring the car over to Chris's name on Monday before I leave on Tuesday and extending his ticket for a bit longer, but that just fell out as Monday is a public holiday here and the registration office will be closed and I won't be able to transfer it, meaning we might have to do everything Friday, meaning I have 4 days left to make the sale. We are still debating whether or not we should extend Chris's ticket until May and the Volcano situation to clear in Europe (something there is no set timeline on as it is a volcano and is not controlled by the airline industry) which isn't making this decision any easier. Another kick to the groin came in the form of the Euro dropping like a stone to being almost par with the Australian dollar, which means the Europeans are going to be forking out twice as much coin for a car as they expected. To add to the trouble Chris and I have been arguing more lately about what to do, as Chris keeps suggesting these stupid ideas, currently they include:

-Parking the car somewhere and then Chris should be back in 6 months and he could sell it then, problem is car rego (like insurance) expires in July and it would be sitting down here for 4 months unregistered, and if something does happen it is in my name and I get in trouble. Chris says nothing will happen from it, I reply that if he knows everything that will happen why didn't he warn me about that Icelandic volcano screwing us over weeks ago. If it is in my name, I don't want a possible axe hanging over my head when I am 6000miles away, as I will be worrying about it the whole time.

-Park it out by his friends place and have her sell it for us (something I don't like doing until we talk to her first)

I think tomorrow we will stop by the used car dealers and see what they would give us for cash. I am also looking up some of the other ways of selling it including car auctions. Will let everyone know what happens later.