The Jennings 3

We finally have our hands on all our household stuff, including bikes, clothes, toys, DVD’s. Everything.

After our last unsuccessful trip to Christchurch to pick up our belongings (thwarted by customs, who wanted money, and the ministry of farming who check, clean and spray anything that might have come into contact with terra firma in the UK) we returned to finally pick up all things on Wednesday.

We took the same route through Arthur’s Pass (stopping off at the Hot Springs again – bliss) and got to the depot early Thursday morning ready for a day of packing. This place was like an Aladdin’s cave of cool imported things from vintage American cars to huge power boats, rally cars and various other racing vehicles of all sizes and shapes. The tamed monkeys they had working there were having the most fun firing up any random vehicle they liked the look of and, in their words, ‘ticking it off the list of vehicles driven’. Looked like fun but we were there for business.

The ‘monkeys’ said there would be no way we would get everything in the car/trailer in one go (which wasn’t an option) so from about 9am and 2pm we accepted the challenge and were involved in a giant game of reverse Jenga. Every inch of space counted as we crammed, squeezed, squashed and manipulated all our stuff into every nook and cranny. And I am delighted to say that it all went in with literally not an inch to spare.

The car was a bit of a handful on the way home, making the once fun twisty mountain route a little torturous to say the least, but the Subaru handled it no problem and we got home at about 8pm.

After a full unload I am delighted to say that everything made it in one piece, unscathed, and the last couple of days have seen Lisa changing clothes every half and hour, Buster burying himself in cars and jigsaws and me building up and polishing all the bikes I managed to sneak past Lisa’s attention when we were packing up (that includes those Yeti forks John – if you want them you’ll find them on e-bay soon).

For those of you following this saga closely you might be wondering ‘what’s happening with the Audi?’ Well, we were actually next to it in the depot all day but it can’t go anywhere until Audi Europe get back to them with data on emissions and frontal impact. I have enlisted the kind help of my brother in law Simon (who has enough on his plate at the moment with his imminent move to Melbourne) and hopefully can fly back down to ChCh next week to pick the old girl up and put an end to our importing woes. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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