Day 149 - Christchurch

Christchurch 'looks' rubbish. This is a fact. Its flat. Its grey. Its dull. And even with the sun out, it oozes boredom. But we have a flight, and we have to sell the laser, so we have no choice, but hang out here until Tuesday. 5 days. I'm dreading it.

We arrived pretty late and checked into the YHA - a decrepid old school where the rooms are just tiny classrooms and the foyer smells of wee. But after Anna knocked us up a Thai Green Curry for her final night, we played some Uno and hit the sack.





Because Friday morning was the day we put the Laser on sale. Sam and I got up at the crack of dawn (10am) and took the car through a carwash and hoovered the life out of it. Then we drove it down to the Backpacker's Car Market about 10 blocks out of town. Here's the thing - when we bought the car in Auckland, the lovely woman who sold us the car - promising us she was commission-free and lie-free - said that the car market would be heaving and we'd shift the car in a day. Maybe even for a profit. So we turn up.



The place is rank. Its so rank. Its dusty. Dirty. The cars are rank. the prices are ranker - perfectly good looking cars for less that $1500 (we're hoping to sell the Laser for $2500). The guy on reception who looked like he had a twitch, a squint and was stoned, said we'd never get more than $1000 for it, and even then, we'd be lucky. It was dire. And to top it all off, "nobody is buying cars at the moment". It seems its all about the vans.



Anyway, we paid our $60 (20 quid) to leave the car there for 3 days, and walked straight back to the hostel - time to follow anna to the airport to make sure she got on her flight back to the UK (I'm kidding anna, we wanted you to stay). Caught short because our return bus was ready to depart, we hugged her and left her in the capable hands of the cute french guy she was flirting with in Milford Sound. Anna has exactly 2 hours til her flight to get his number. Easy.

Anyway, the rest of the day was written off. Eve had been asleep for about 48 hours now, so I joined her for a 3 hour nap, meaning neither of us could sleep and stayed up til 3am watching Scary Movie.



So today comes, and Sam and I went back to the Car Market to sell our car. You're supposed to sit with the vehicle, so you can promote it to people when they come in. So we got there at 9:30am, grabbed a seat, put some music on, and waited... and waited... 2 hours... nothing. 3 hours... 1 person, looking at a van. 4 hours... I went out to the supermarket to relieve my boredom. 6 hours. one dude took the laser for test-drive, but its too pricey. I gave him my mobile number if he changed his mind, but its never gonna happen.



This place is an actual scale model recreation of HELL. Its horrendous. And its like a prison. People write on the walls to keep their sanity. The log book is full of people talking about sales on the 6/7/8th day of sitting in the most depressing garage you have ever been in. 5:30pm came, and we left. Depressed. And we're gonna attempt to get an early night.



Its a nightmare. We have exactly 3 days to sell the car. Its all in Sam's name, so we can't just leave it to rot. We have to shift it. If it doesn't sell, we have to pay to get it scrapped. Me - I don't worry about this stuff. It'll happen. Somehow. But Sam - she's going mental. Worrying about what will happen. Worrying that we'll have to change our flights to stay until it sells. Worrying we'll lose all out money. She's a mess. I'll keep you posted - but the laser needs to sell soon - or we're screwed.