Still Without Van, But Still Trying ...
10th January, Cairns.
This morning Manda and I caught a taxi over to some guy's place toward the north of the town. He was having a garage sale there but, more importantly, he had a van for sale - a Toyota Hiace. These vans seem to be pretty good, reliable vans if not a little dull.
The price tag was a bit high, though, but still worth checking out. Unfortunately the van had cracked lights, indicators, worn tyres and a missing wing mirror. Those are the things that we could see, and it made me wonder what other things could crop up once the van went through the roadworthy inspection (in Queensland you cannot sell a vehicle without first getting it inspected, like an MoT, or if you do you have to remove the plates). We both decided after seeing this one to leave it. The asking price plus the work required to get it up to scratch was too much.
We headed back in to town after that and I spent much of the day following leads for vans. I headed off to a rooftop car park on Abbott Street where they have the Travellers Car Market. For a nominal fee, travellers can park their cars in the central location for people like me to see. It used to be that people would park them up at the Esplanade all day with a For Sale sign in the window but this has since been banned; trying it now might get you a fine.
As it was yesterday, the people who offer the service had a few vans listed in their book, but on the roof it was a different story - there was nothing there apart from a couple of beaten-up Nissan station wagons.
I then went back to Cairns Central, refuelled with a nice cold drink with Manda then headed off again in the opposite direction. The midday heat was getting stifling again, and walking to the car lot on Spence street (our taxi driver this morning recommended giving it a look) was tiring work. It was also fruitless, again. Nothing there except for one Hiace that was immaculate, but had no price on the window yet. Looking at the prices of other cars surrounding it, I realised it would be too expensive. I turned on my heel and once more made for the air-con coolness of Cairns Central.
While sitting with Manda for another cold drink, I decided to phone up the car market again to see if anything new had come it. And something had! Another Hiace for $800. "Do you mean $8000?" I asked. "No, definitely $800," came the reply. For that money it's got to be a right old dog, I reasoned. Then again, what if this person was as desparate to get rid of the van as we were to get hold of one? Off I went again, all the way up Shields Street until I got to the junction with Abbott Street, then back up the three flights of stairs to the baking hot car park to find ... that it had already gone in that 15 minute interval.
Back at the shopping mall, Manda got me a fruit smoothie from a juice bar which went down extremely well. I sat there looking spaced out and exhausted. All this walking round was taking its toll. What we need is a van!
In the evening we went over to the Green Ant Cantina on Bunda Street (just along the road from the hostel) to meet up with Paul, one of the co-owners, who would be taking us up for a flight over the reef tomorrow. Oh, and just one more van to look at. And this one, well, it kinda had us thinking "Is this the one?" before it even pulled over:
We both checked it out as much as we could in the available light, and it looked in tip top condition - bodywork and engine. The asking price? $AUD 2500. The downside is that there is nothing in the back except for the carpet and panel trimming. It would need some woodwork put in there to give us some storage space and whatever. I took it for a drive and liked it a lot and both of us came away thinking that this one had the most potential yet.