Over the weekend I worked but we still fit in a few events after my shifts. We checked out the art gallery which has a neat video exhibit on now. The artist taped things like surfing, motorcycling, flying and more so it was kind of neat to see. On Saturday night we took a picnic and met up with a couple friends from couchsurfing to go see the fireworks the city puts on for Guy Fawkes. One of Dustin's workmates played in one of the bands that opened the evening. It was lovely if not a little cold due to a southeasterly coming in! But we kept warm enough and the 15 minute firework display was really cool! Lots of neat ones!
Then on Sunday when Dustin picked me up from work we went up to the Whitecliffs Walkway and wandered along the beach there. It's got all these massive cliffs so the scenery was quite stunning.
I've been running around this morning trying to find someone to fix the doors on the car. It was in the shop all Thursday and then the mechanic was trying to get a used part for the doors but hadn't found one yet so today I took it around to some body shops (or as they call them here, Panelbeaters) and most places are reckoning it's too much to bother fixing but we kind of need the car so we have to figure something out. I booked in tomorrow to one place where they were just going to try to pull out the hinge pins and rotate them (as they are worn down the way they are sitting now) and hopefully that'll do the trick. But next after that is replacing the bushings and pins which bumps up to at least about $500 once the labour comes in. Yikes! So here's hoping they can work it out simply tomorrow! I think they can, he seemed rather confident. But every place seems to think it's not really something that should cause a failure of the warrant testing. However, each inspector is free to interpret the guidelines so we could argue with the first guy and likely get nowhere, we could take it somewhere else and pay for a new inspection but then that runs the risk of them finding something that the first guy didn't see as an issue but that they do or we can just try to fix it. So we're starting there. In hindsight, rather than having a mechanic take a look at the car when we bought it we should have just taken it for a warrant test and then could have used that as bargaining material. Since it has to be done every 6 months though I figured what major issues would come up? But I guess if you live here full-time and consistently take it to the same place you get the same eye looking at it with their same standards. Oh well, what's to be done?
Well we have decided to move out of New Plymouth on Dec 10th so I'm quitting work on the 8th and Dustin is still deciding when he's done. If the surf looks good I'm pushing him to take the last week off to just surf and hike and do the things he hasn't been able to yet. But one more week of salary is too inviting to him at this point.
It's pretty funny the situations you end up in while you're travelling. They seem to result from many factors - living in a temporary situation, being cheap, or just being ill-equipped. I guess this was a combo of all three. Today I really needed to wash the car. Sounds simple enough doesn't it? But the way they sell hoses here is you just get the hose and have to buy the fittings separately. So I saw we had a hose at the tap in the parking lot of the building but it's just cut off at each end so there's no way to attach it to the tap! It doesn't make sense for us to buy fittings since they are of no use if you have no hose or no tap. We do have two buckets in our suite though so there I am washing the car with dish soap and our kitchen broom, using one bucket for soapy water and one to fill up and rinse. It's about a 9 litre bucket so it was alright except it illustrated the main reason for a hose - being able to stand away from the splash back! But I figured a makeshift wash is better than nothing, at the very least it cleared the cobwebs. No I'm not just using an expression, since we bought it actually there's been cobwebs on it. At first I would brush them off but they always returned. I don't know where the spiders are living but around the side view mirrors and around the spare tire on the back I reckon. I'll see if the webs are back tomorrow though!
Then on Sunday when Dustin picked me up from work we went up to the Whitecliffs Walkway and wandered along the beach there. It's got all these massive cliffs so the scenery was quite stunning.
I've been running around this morning trying to find someone to fix the doors on the car. It was in the shop all Thursday and then the mechanic was trying to get a used part for the doors but hadn't found one yet so today I took it around to some body shops (or as they call them here, Panelbeaters) and most places are reckoning it's too much to bother fixing but we kind of need the car so we have to figure something out. I booked in tomorrow to one place where they were just going to try to pull out the hinge pins and rotate them (as they are worn down the way they are sitting now) and hopefully that'll do the trick. But next after that is replacing the bushings and pins which bumps up to at least about $500 once the labour comes in. Yikes! So here's hoping they can work it out simply tomorrow! I think they can, he seemed rather confident. But every place seems to think it's not really something that should cause a failure of the warrant testing. However, each inspector is free to interpret the guidelines so we could argue with the first guy and likely get nowhere, we could take it somewhere else and pay for a new inspection but then that runs the risk of them finding something that the first guy didn't see as an issue but that they do or we can just try to fix it. So we're starting there. In hindsight, rather than having a mechanic take a look at the car when we bought it we should have just taken it for a warrant test and then could have used that as bargaining material. Since it has to be done every 6 months though I figured what major issues would come up? But I guess if you live here full-time and consistently take it to the same place you get the same eye looking at it with their same standards. Oh well, what's to be done?
Well we have decided to move out of New Plymouth on Dec 10th so I'm quitting work on the 8th and Dustin is still deciding when he's done. If the surf looks good I'm pushing him to take the last week off to just surf and hike and do the things he hasn't been able to yet. But one more week of salary is too inviting to him at this point.
It's pretty funny the situations you end up in while you're travelling. They seem to result from many factors - living in a temporary situation, being cheap, or just being ill-equipped. I guess this was a combo of all three. Today I really needed to wash the car. Sounds simple enough doesn't it? But the way they sell hoses here is you just get the hose and have to buy the fittings separately. So I saw we had a hose at the tap in the parking lot of the building but it's just cut off at each end so there's no way to attach it to the tap! It doesn't make sense for us to buy fittings since they are of no use if you have no hose or no tap. We do have two buckets in our suite though so there I am washing the car with dish soap and our kitchen broom, using one bucket for soapy water and one to fill up and rinse. It's about a 9 litre bucket so it was alright except it illustrated the main reason for a hose - being able to stand away from the splash back! But I figured a makeshift wash is better than nothing, at the very least it cleared the cobwebs. No I'm not just using an expression, since we bought it actually there's been cobwebs on it. At first I would brush them off but they always returned. I don't know where the spiders are living but around the side view mirrors and around the spare tire on the back I reckon. I'll see if the webs are back tomorrow though!
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