With the house sorted and my time at the hotel drawing to a close the next thing to do was buy a car . As most of you know im a VW driver back in the UK. (oh how i miss that car!) So my mision was to spend a weekend looking at Beetles and see if i could find a decent one.
I found a mechanic in Wellington by the name of Lane. Great bloke who seems to do work on VW 's as a hobby rather than a business. He just seems to be doing the "hobby" all the time. a great contact to make even if he does like his later water-cooled models more!!
So i did some digging and i organised to see three beetles over the course of the weekend. all pre 1957 Oval windows and all in various conditions. All based in and around Auckland which is about a 7 hour drive from Wellington !(yeah Right!)
Tim and I set off after work on the friday night and headed north. The roads are a pleasure to drive on , especially in a nice fast hire car! As soon as you leave Wellington you join a motorway. Now most people wiill see in their minds eye the M25 or M1 ... nothing like that.. these are traffic free roads with beautiful mountains on either side. Much nicer driving conditions!
Pretty soon the motorway becomes a one lane fast flowing road that has passing lanes every few KM. You twist and wind through the countryside and along the coastal road as you head Northwards.
Im not sure who told us it was a 7 hour drive. They lied because it took us over 9 hours and we didn't stop on the way exept to refuel! As i got dark Tim and I decided to press on as we were both still very awake and thought it would be a good idea to try and make it to Auckland that night(bad decision right Tim !)
At one point we realised that the stars were really bright. We felt like we were very high up in comparasion to all the valley driving that we had been doing. We stopped and got out of the car and with no artificial light at all we were greeted by the most stunning star-filled sky!
It was pretty amazing!
Constalations that you know and recognise were super bright and the band that is the Milky Way was so clear it was amazing!(Tim says i use that word too often?)
The last 3 or 4 hours drive was done by Tim(thanks mate) and i had a kip ! Who says im like my Dad ??
Auckland is a strange place and not what i expected at all. There is one motorway that runs through the centre of the city and you have to drive if you want to go anywhere. Its a confusing place with little or no sign posts once you leave that lovely motorway.
We found an area with loads of motels but they were all full.! Completely full ! After a short while we realised why... U2 had been playing a concert just down the road and as a result.. yep we could find no where to stay !
Tim said he knew a place out of town and had stayed there before. It was now nearing 4am as we headed NOrth again. We found the area he had previously visited but the story was the same. We ended up sleeping in the car by the beach ! It wasn't too bad but i cant say either of us slept very well. All part of the adventure though i say!
The following morning ( well i say morning ... it was about 3 hours later !!) we headed of to see car number one. Now i wont go into details about the three cars as i will send all of you (except maybe E and Damon) to sleep!
All of them needed work done. One was in top condition but drove really badly, one was in need of work but the guy wanted too much for it, and the last one.. well the less said about that the better!! It had been "restored" a few years ago and one quick look under the carpets at the heater channels made me nearly faint. What was welded must have been done by a blind man or a four year old!! The guy wanted 10000nz dollars (3500 uk) for it !!
Two hopes mate !
1 comment:
Awsome!
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