Winding Down

We sold Hank for $300 to a wonderful elderly gentleman named John Penny. John is an ex-pilot, from Christchurch, who lived in Hawaii for 25 years. He's a really nice guy who is gonna give the car to his grandson, for the 3 months he is coming to visit and travel. We estimate that 3 months is about how long Hank has to live. There's a pretty nasty, oily sludge that builds up daily in the overflow reservoir for the radiator, and the radiator itself. Hank overheats constantly now. And the transmission fluid is leaking. He's falling apart! In trying to sell him to a couple of folks our age, before we knew he was dying, he overheated during the test drive. Oops. Betsy and I, in the end, didn't feel comfortable knowningly handing over a broken car to travellers like us; even if it would have netted us $1700. It easily would have. By now we've had a dozen or so callers, and they keep coming daily (our flyers weren't removed upon Hank's sale). Back to John Penny. He's letting us keep the car until we leave Christchurch (Dec 9th), he's buying our phone for his grandson(!), and has offered us a place to shower and a ride to the airport. He's a cool guy, and we're happy that Hank's last few months will be happy, and that we both have a clean conscience.

We're basically out of money, so we're lying low in Christchurch for the final week of South Island time. On December 9th we'll fly to Tauranga to spend a week with our South African friends in Papamoa. We're both looking very forward to it.

Tick, tock...