Happy Birthday

I've been waiting since my lovely red Peugeot was written off on July 9, to get my new car. First I had to wait for the insurance assessors to declare it a write off, then wait to see how much would be paid out, then wait to pay off the interest to the financiers, the wait to negotiate a new finance deal and arrange everything. The broker found me a car in NSW for a VERY good price, the only problem was, they couldn't deliver it fast enough. So finally in desperation, I decided to fly up to Sydney on my birthday & drive the car home. I asked John to come with me and share the driving..... and here's how the day went!
When we got on the plane, he was asking me if I knew how to voice record on the phone, so I showed him! D'uoh! As we arrived into Sydney the Pilot came on the loudspeaker and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain speaking. Just as we taxi to the terminal I'd like to take this opportunity to wish Catherine Stephensen a Happy Birthday. Catherine is sitting in row 39 on the right hand sisde and she's flown up from Melbourne to pick up her new car. It sounds like a pretty good birthday present to me, so Happy Birthday Catherine, I hope you have a good day and a safe drive back to Melbourne."



We had the best fun doing the trip and John photographed EVERYTHING including the people we were talking to on the train from Sydney airport to the car dealers, and the train driver.
The train trip was an event in itself and we have promised each other we will go back and do it again one day. John asked the driver if there was much to be seen on the way down to Wollengong, and he answered laconically, "Nah, there's not much, just a bit of a view as we go around a bend." Well the whole trip was as pretty as could be, with mountains and lush semi-tropical foliage & bushland. As we left Sydney we went through pretty suburbs with lovely historic cottages, then into the coastal landscape. We had started talking ot a couple of other passengers, and I regretted it because I could have happily sat and watched the scenery go by.
We have photos of the Dealer handing over the car keys,
the car in front of the Dealers yard,

the car in front of the Dog on the Tuckerbox at Gundagi and in front of the place we stopped for coffee and in front of the service station McDonalds at Kilmore. I managed to get him over the State Border without him realising we were crossing it, otherwise we would have had to stop & photograph the border crossing too....

It was a memorable birthday.

The driving trip took bang on 10 hours, we covered 872k on a single tank of fuel, with enough left in the tank to do another 125 k.
I think the average usage was 6.2 litres per 100k. It is a very beautiful car.








































































2009/11/12 Kristin S <kristin.rs@gmail.com>
























































nice one mum!

























































On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 8:40 AM, catherine Stephensen <itsme.cath@gmail.com> wrote:












































Sent from my iPhone















Begin forwarded message:





























From: osborne2@iinet.net.au
Date: 12 November 2009 8:11:46 AEDT
To: "Cath Stephensen" <itsme.cath@gmail.com>
Subject: cath plane announcement
Reply-To: osborne2@iinet.net.au












































Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra












































































--
Cath S
http://itssomethingelse.blogspot.com/

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