A Van, A Van, My Kingdom for a Van ...

Manda writes:

Today was 'camper van hunting day'.

Ian had gone to look for vans all morning - visiting The Traveller's Car Market (above the The Ultimate Party Experience tour operators on Abbott Street) and following up adverts that we had seen in hostels/bars and in the 'Trade It' magazine/various 'Free ads' sections in the newspapers.

We met up for lunch at the mall and Ian made more phonecalls to the shortlist of potentials. He'd arranged for a guy named Tsahi to bring his Mitsubishi L300 to the car park.

Before Tsahi arrived, we made guesses at his ethnicity. We both came to the conclusion that this guy was Japanese, based on the spelling of his name. Tsahi would look out for a guy wearing a blue Mambo baseball cap (aka Ian) and we were looking out for a Japanese guy with dreadlocks (on hindsight, we should have twigged at this point!).

Tsahi, the Israeli, arrived twenty minutes later in a battered old van. We found out that his name was pronounced 'Sack-hee'. The van looked tatty but had all the essentials and a few extras: - mattress, make-shift table, oil can, petrol can, tool set, gas cooker, mobile phone (incl. Australian SIM card), fan, blinds, drink coolers, deck chairs, 6 months rego (car tax) and a road worthy certificate (kinda like a MOT). The engine sounded ok too. Obviously, we'd need to get a qualified mechanic to check out any vehicle before buying it.

After we'd left Tsahi, Ian talked about the potential of this van. He could see past the dirt and grime and was already suggesting possible improvements like spray-painting the exterior with a simple design (his old graffiti skills should come in handy for this), painting the interior panels white to brighten it up a bit, putting curtains up to segregate the driver and passenger sides etc.

I liked the van but thought that it was slightly over-priced - although I'm sure this is negotiable to a certain extent.

I got the impression that Ian just wanted to buy a van and get outta Cairns. We have done all that we can in this place and it is the right time to move on. But I reminded him not to rush into anything - we still have the Sunday market (where people take their vehicles to sell) on standby. We don't want to make an impulse buy and end up regretting it later on.

We have a few more vans to see tomorrow - the hunt continues ...