CROWN REMOVALS

On Thursday The Old Girl received a call from Crown Removals that our furniture had arrived from the UK and could be delivered today (Saturday).
That was good, albeit short notice given that it was sent from UK mid January so she began to finalise the delivery arrangements.
Out of 60 odd packages of varying sizes three were to come up north to our house and the rest to go to the city apartment.

The Old Girl's work is paying for the shipment (as they did from Canada to UK) and we are to pay for the variation - the three items to go up north. These items are a bed settee, a telescope and a small box containing a fold-up 'wardrobe').
All good but Crown told the Old Girl that the extra to deliver up north would cost $638.
That's right - $638 for 3 items. Admittedly the bed settee is a 3 seater and fairly large but really!

I said that I'd check out getting a hire van and travel down to Auckland to collect 3 said items.
Given the short notice this was a bit difficult as up here cargo vans need to be booked in well in advance and are in great demand on weekends.
The listed cost was minimum $120 per day before insurance and all of those hidden extras that always seem to be added to the bill on hire contracts. To make it worse, as I needed to leave Whangarei at 6.30 to get to Auckland at 9AM at the latest as the moving company promised said indicated that they would be at the apartment between 8 and 8.30, I would have had to pick up the van on Friday afternoon before 5PM which of course they would consider an extra day's rental. All this IF a van were to be available.

I don't have a trailer on my brave little car which I've used to transport a lot of things - a fridge, garden rubbish, wine etc - but a 3 seater settee would be too much and wouldn't fit.



I contacted good friend Rod who lives nearby. He's retired and needs money so we agreed that he would drive down to Auckland with me in his car and trailer and we'd pick up the items. Cost: $100 plus expenses. Expenses were the toll road fee each way ($4.60) and fuel (I filled up his car to a cost of $70). I also bought him lunch.

Everything went smoothly except, of course, Crown were late in arriving. The 'between 8am and 8.30 AM' turned out to be 10AM!
This caused a lot of stress as our apartment is in a busy and narrow street in central Auckland where parking is definitely at a premium. Fortunately The Old Girl had alerted our building manager of our plans and he arranged with the construction company who are knocking down a building next door and building another (yes, it's Auckland after all) for us to use the blocked off parking area that they have reserved. It was touch and go during the waiting period. The construction foreman was on the street waiting for big trucks with building materials to arrive. We were waiting for the Crown removals guys. The construction foreman helped us to move the traffic cones so we coud park the car and trailer and to extend the area somewhat to allow the Crown van to park if and when it arrived. It was very stressful and if I was Richard (of RBB) I'd have been alternately puffing on a cigarette and an asthma inhaler.
Luckily the construction vehicles were also late (this is Auckland remember) and, when the Crown truck eventually arrived we had time to unpack the truck and load our 3 items on to to trailer and get away.

The trip back to the 'Heads' was smooth and easy and, as I've said before, the feeling when cresting the Brynderwyn Hills and seeing Bream Head, the Hen and chicken Islands and the bay is wonderful. Stress leaves your body immediately (for Rod, stress left his body the moment we got over the harbour bridge).