After an early start in the warm-water 'natatorium', we thought it was a little too early to return to "Riverbend", and so I suggested to Padma we'd head off up the road to Ulladulla for a browse through our favourite op-shops and lunch at the Ulladulla Palace Chinese restaurant.
Ever since our trusty old FORD FOCUS needed a new EGR valve a couple of weeks ago - click here - it's been at the back of my mind to look at a new car and, having previously owned a TOYOTA CAMRY which had served me well, I pulled in at Ulladulla TOYOTA to see what's on offer.
Delivery time on new cars is now from around six months to well over a year, which has made second-hand cars more popular but also more expensive. We looked at a 2018-model TOYOTA YARIS which had only 50,000km on the clock, and which was small enough to be able to be driven by Padma and cheap enough not to attract our neighbours' envy.
To take it for a test-drive, I had to sign a waiver which committed me to paying a thousand-dollar excess in case of an accident, after which a mechanic drove it off the yard into the street where I noticed that it was chucking copious amounts of water from its exhaust pipe. "Oh, that's just condensation; every car does that", he tried to reassure me.
Maybe so, but I'd never seen that much water emitted from an exhaust! It instantly changed my "Oh What A Feeling" to "Maybe our trusty old FORD FOCUS is still good for another 50,000km!" which, with our small amount of driving, would mean another two years of motoring. Anyway, I shall keep my NRMA Roadside Assistance policy paid up just in case!
Having just saved myself $15,990 - to say nothing of any possible repairs to fix that exhaust problem! - I allowed myself a few more books from the op-shop: "Why do Busses Come in Threes? - The hidden mathematics of everyday life"; "Headscarves and Hymens - Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution"; "Please, Mr Einstein"; "China Unbound - New World Disorder"; and "In Search of Shangri-La - The Extraordinary Story of the Quest for the Lost Horizon". Beats reading a car manual hands down!
