The last two days were tough, but rewarding. After a day of sightseeing and finding my way around Sydney by car, the next day I take the underground to a distant suburb. That’s where the big car dealers are. I get an address from the local trading post. After an hour on the underground and in a taxi, I’m standing in front of the Sydney Car King.
One of Sydney’s biggest car dealers, according to its own information, it now has just 15 cars. They are all rubbish. Cheap, leaky, dripping, rattling. He only allows test drives in the yard. When I press hard on the accelerator in the fifth car to hear the engine, the King steams closer, snorting with rage, and I leave shortly afterwards without having achieved anything.
Someone says there are more car dealers back there. I walk along the road for a full five kilometres. Nothing. The sun is blazing, the cars are speeding. I chug one Coke after another. Eventually I find a dealer. The people are nice and give me some cold water. When I realise that I must have forgotten my wallet at a Coke station, I even get a test drive.
The car: a white 94 Hyundai Sonata. Almost a racing car and clearly too big for me. But what the hell? Technically it seems to be okay, the air conditioning works (a bit), and 180,000 kilometres is not that much by Australian standards. I negotiate the price down from 2800 to 2300 = 1800€. Should be good.
10 minutes later I’m on the road. Grinning. No more towing. Freedom to see everything and stop everywhere. Two hours later I’m back in Kings Cross. Just another hour later, I have a parking space.
Next day: insure the car, then off to the RTA registration office. The numbers are called in quick succession. Until one number before mine. Then it takes forever. My heart beats faster and faster. Adrenalin. It all reminds me so much of my registration attempt in New York. And the fact that I still own a car there. Please, please: not the same thing again. Then comes my number.
I go to the counter. German passport and driving licence only? No problem. The official just wants confirmation from the hostel that I’m really staying there. I take the underground back, get it and go back to the RTA. 10 minutes later, everything is done. I can hardly believe it. Insurance and re-registration, a total of €220 and three hours.
Off to the hostel. A woman from Munich and a Frenchman I spoke to briefly last night want to travel with me. Great! Rewarding cooking, cheaper travelling. Everything turns out as it should. Everything is fine. I move from the cockroach hostel to the nearby Eva Backpackers. Quite expensive at €20, but clean and a roof terrace with a view of the Sydney skyline. Relax. Peace and quiet before the start.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.