Moments after stepping out of the shark tank, my phone rang: “It’s Paula, we’re in Brisbane already. Where are you?”

A couple of days ago I had posted a handful of adverts on the internet to begin the sale our glorious and trustworthy car, Don. I had fielded a number of calls from interested parties and indicated that we’d be arriving in the state capital later today. Paula, a German lass had called yesterday from Byron Bay and had indicated to me that she’d immediately leave for Brisbane to be first in line to view. We were still two hours away and so we rushed down a baked potato and set sail southwards. Was this to be our last big(-ish) drive in Don?

Without even stopping to unload our bags at our accommodation, we headed towards our chosen meeting place in an unfamiliar city. Like any city’s downtown, there was nowhere to stop and so we picked up our Paula and her two friends from a roadside bench and drove them around the city extolling the virtues of our car. Every time I stopped to pop open the bonnet, a city bus appeared with a head-shaking, finger-waggling driver to move us on. Eventually, we found a quiet spot to change seats and allow our prospective clients a drive. Initially bashful, they mentioned that they didn’t need a test drive as they had been in the car as I drove. “Nonsense!”, I exclaimed, “you can’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive!?”

Needless to say that they were impressed with our machine and so agreed to buy it that night. In fact, if it weren’t for us slowing down the deal to the next day (to file the paperwork, you see?) they would have given us a wad of cash for it there and then. Where one roadtrip ends, another on begins: we got a fair price, our trusty backpackers got a great car and now we’ve got ten days to sightsee Brisbane, which is probably way more than we need. We had initially booked so many days in the city because we thought selling Don might take at least six days of printing up posters, trudging around backpackers hostels and meeting-and-greeting leagues of potential suitors. In a spooky near-repeat performance of when we sold Yoko, our VW camper van, the first people to view our car bought it immediately.

Either we’re darn good salespeople, or we massively under price our cars, or we’re just lucky. Or a mix of the three…?

Farewell Don, for you have served us flawlessly. If we ever again own a car as comfortable, reliable and as powerful as you are, we’ll be stoked! Good luck, old friend, on your new route to Cairns!