19 August 2008 - Finally a van!!

5th August

This morning was our last one cleaning so we were desperate to get the van as we didn’t want to have to pay $50 a night again. We had both had a bad nights sleep worrying about the van, we had already been in cairns over a week and needed to get going, not to mention that we had told Colm we would leave by Wednesday.

Dan and I eagerly awaited James call, finally he rang and gave us the bad news, he had sold the van to other buyer for $4800, needless to say we weren’t happy!! After cleaning we explained to Colm what had happened thankfully he understood it would be a few more days at least before we set off.

That afternoon the three of us went into town to look at some other vans. We stopped by the notice board and rang a few up and arranged to meet them in the lagoon. The first one we saw was a rust bucket and an over priced one at that. Thankfully the next van a Toyota Tarago fit the bill so we ought her there and then for $2600, we weren’t taking any chances after our last fiasco! There was one problem, the safety certificate needed to change owners had run out so we had to have it re-done which could mean paying out for anything they deemed unworthy!! I ran the local garage up, the quickest they could fit the van in was Thursday, so we had another day to waste!