The last few days have been extremely eventful for the Goonies but we finally made it into Cairns, but with a casualty. Sadly ‘Sandy The Van’ had fallen ill and suffered badly from the 9 hour straight ride from Ingham. As we arrived late in the evening, we just parked ‘Sandy’ outside our hostel as parking was free in the evening. But the following morning we had to move the van so that we didn’t receive a fine and this is where we discovered the problem. As soon as we started the van we did not realise that the starter motor was continuously ticking over until we had found another suitable parking spot and switched off the van. The sound was horrible and you could hear a small piece of ‘Sandy’ dieing away as the starter motor gradually grew quieter until it finally went silent. From this point onwards we thought ‘Sandy’ was dead as she would not start up even with a jump start from another car. It was Sunday, everything was closed, so there was only one thing we could do which was to mourn for ‘Sandy’ over a few beers.

The following day arrived quickly and the Goonies got straight to business to revive ‘Sandy’ as we was leaving in three days time and was intending on selling ‘Sandy’ during those days. After a quick internet session we discovered that RACQ (roadside service like The AA) was cheap even for non member so acquired their services immediately. The RACQ got ‘Sandy’ started by ‘by-passing’ the starter motor and immediately diagnosed that the starter motor was the problem which we had already concluded. The only reason we needed the RACQ was that ‘Sandy’ needed to be towed to a garage to be fixed which any roadside service companies are required to do if they cannot fix the problem on the spot. So now with our technically free tow service ‘Sandy’ was delivered to a garage where we would discover the extent of the damage and see how much we was going to be ripped off. As the garage was understaffed and backlogged with more work than they could cope with they could not look at the problem immediately, so the Goonies took a chill out session and went to the cinema to watch Slum Dog Millionaire.

After the film we received the call from the garage and as expected was being ripped off in broad day light, but we had no choice as it would be virtually impossible to sell a dead van especially if we only had two days left before we flew out the following day. Three hours later and the van was fixed, so we walked to the garage immediately whilst calling back all the potential buyers we had. One buyer wanted to see the van immediately and we had not even received the van back and clean it up, but we desperately accepted and agreed to meet in 30 minutes time outside our hostel. With only 15 minutes until we meet our first buyer we arrived at the garage. The team had to split up to get all the necessary work done in time. Chris settled the bill whilst me and John frantically clean up ‘Sandy’ so that she looked presentable to the potential buyer.

Our 15 minutes were up and we were met outside our hostel with our first potential buyers. Everything went smoothly, the test drives perfect and the buyers loving ‘Sandy’ and including the fact that she was yellow. However, they did not want to make a hasty decision so wanted to sleep on it. What made matters worst was that our last day to sell the van was tomorrow and they were away all day tomorrow on a boat trip. So we let it settle for awhile and went to a place called Rhino Bar where we had vouchers for a free meal and where we could have a few drinks and decided how we would react to the buyers decision.

After an awful free meal we chilled out in the bar having a few pints when we decided to text the buyer to make an offer which we had already decided would accept due to our situations which the buyer was not aware of. Anyways, to cut a long story short the buyer called us back instead, made his offer which we accepted on the condition that the deal must be completed tomorrow tonight. I must have sounded really pushy / dodgy but the buyer accepted and ‘Sandy’ was no longer ours. So me managed to fix up ‘Sandy’ and sell her all in one day meaning we had overestimated the time we needed in Cairns ;).

Back at the Rhino Bar we stayed there for the rest of the evening taking full advantage of their drinks promotion which was drink as much as you can between 10:30PM - 11:30PM for only 8 AU$. Needlessly to say we was drinking for pride and country but even after the drinks promotion we managed to win a free jug of beer by singing the chorus to ‘Sex On Fire’ by the Kings Of Leon when the DJ came around with his microphone.

Other than partying every night we did not do much else in Cairns because most of our time was taken up sorting out the van and most importantly the weather was awful meaning snorkeling and diving around The Great Barrier Reef was out of the question. This was disappointing as we was planning on a trip to Cape Tribulation and possibly Port Douglas for a spot off diving. Other than going to the cinema, John replace his dead point and shoot camera with a new flashy SLR so we should be expecting lots of great pictures from him.

Next stop culture learning with the Aborigines in Alice Springs.