Packing and a Shifting!

Manda writes:

It was time for our campsite buddies, Colin and Christie, to move on today. Like us, they had a car to sell and finally managed to sell it yesterday evening. But not without a few hitches - it would've been too easy if everything had gone smoothly! While they should have been over the moon at selling their car, we found them looking glum in the kitchen yesterday evening, shortly after the exchange. Colin looked very worried indeed. The reason being that they had sold the vehicle to three Croatians who had paid for it entirely in cash, had not even test driven it, didn't even seem to know what make of car it was and didn't seem to care, and wanted to buy it straight away without haggling ('What? You don't want to haggle?' - check your Monty Python references here!). On hindsight, everything about the situation seemed strange.

Once the keys and cash had been exchanged and the Croatians had driven the car away, Colin and Christie retreated to the kitchen, mulling over the various conversations and working themselves up in to a right panic. Had they correctly heard the Croatians say that they had had problems with the Mafia back in their homeland? And that they'd had their restaurant burnt down (presumably not an accident)?

Colin and Christie now had $3,500 in cash on them, the dodgy Croatians had the car and what was even more worrying was the fact that these guys knew exactly which tent they were staying in. As more celebratory pizza and wine were consumed (especially wine, which was fast loosing its fizz), they came to the conclusion that the Croatians may come back for their money and suddenly felt very vulnerable in a tent that could barely offer protection against the elements. It was then that Colin decided to ask Ian to lend him his six-cell Maglite (heavy-duty torch) and diver's knife, purely for defence purposes. This is how worried poor Colin got.

Needless to say, they had an uneasy night but somehow managed to get some shut-eye. Maybe the peace-of-mind of having a torch and knife helped, or perhaps the wine had worked its magic?! Anyhow, they managed to survive the night and went to the bank at the crack of dawn to pay the money in.

In the afternoon, we helped Colin and Christie move lodgings - which involved packing all their stuff in Ethel and driving everything, including passengers, to a hostel 13kms away. They had accumulated many things over the past year in Australia, and it took two van loads to move everything across town. Colin had kitted out his car well and we were surprised how he managed to cram a cooker, full-sized gas cylinder, mattress, body board, two tents, massive esky, a couple of backpacks and more into a Mitsubishi Express. It was like Mary Poppin's handbag - very curious! Once everything had been unloaded, we left them to re-organise their belongings and promised to get in contact with them in the next few days.

Coincidentally, we are all leaving on Thursday and have a few lose ends to tie up before we fly off to our respective destinations: us Thailand and them, Adelaide. We still have our own packing and shifting to look forward to, once Ethel herself has been packed and shifted too!