Car sale in Darwin

After we found out at the mechanic that the radiator of our car was leaking, the engine was consuming too much oil and the battery needed to be replaced, we both felt so down that we bought a bottle of wine, drove to the nearest campground, and tried to calm down. The stupid dealer had really ripped us off, and I felt even worse because I really wanted to buy this car... After initially no one responded to our ad, we finally had a potential buyer with whom we made an appointment. Unfortunately, not a backpacker but some local guy. We waited for two hours in the scorching sun only to realize with disappointment that he wouldn't come anymore. He also didn't respond to our messages anymore. Another group of German backpackers was initially very interested but then canceled as well. We had planned to spend the next nights in a hostel and had booked three nights. We even got upgraded to a double room. When we entered the hostel, we could hardly believe our eyes. Everything was dirty, it smelled like hell, there were food leftovers all over the kitchen, and there were drunk and stoned people in the seating areas who seemed to have lost their lives somewhere along the way. We didn't want to stay a single second longer here and complained at the reception. Luckily, we got our money back. In Jonas' eyes, this was the worst hostel he had seen on the entire trip (my number one remains the elevator in HongKong^^)

Since no one else responded to our ad anymore, we decided to find a Helpx place. Pam and Brian, an older couple, invited us to live with them and eat with them and help renovate the house for a few hours a day in return. At least we had no costs and some distraction. The two of them were a really sweet old couple who had seen a lot of the world, so we exchanged our stories every evening, and it felt good to sleep in a proper bed again. The only downside was that working in the blazing sun at 33 degrees was quite exhausting. There was beer or a glass of wine every evening, and Pam cooked like in a 5-star restaurant. Unfortunately, the portions were correspondingly large^^

Funny enough, Pam's daughter was currently living with a German backpacker couple who were looking for a car. We took the chance and just drove by. We met Markus and Steffi, an incredibly nice couple who decided to buy our car. Since we didn't want to sell our junk to such lovely people, we made a deal that we would get all the repairs done and then they would take the car. Fortunately, our insurance covered part of the costs. So we made a loss in the price, but at least we had a buyer and two new friends. Since the repairs couldn't be done until next week, we spent the next few days together with Markus and Steffi and went to the beach or the public pool a lot. We could barely believe our luck when we finally handed over the fully repaired car to them a week later and could finally plan our onward journey. Maybe everything was meant to be in the end and the sale had a happy ending. At this point, lots of love and greetings to Pam and Brian, who took care of us so lovingly and we had a great time, and of course to Markus and Steffi, without whom we would still be sitting in Darwin today...

For us, it meant packing our backpacks in the evening and the next morning we were already on the plane to Singapore. We couldn't wait :)