Our time in Australia is coming to an end. We really enjoyed driving along the East Coast from Melbourne to Cairns through this huge continent but we have to move on and the last thing to do it’s one of our most unpredictable challenges: selling our van.

We bought “Manuschka”, our backpacker-style ford econovan, in Melbourne with a Victoria REGO and originally planned to sell it in Sydney, from where we would have jumped on our next flight RTW.

We thought Manuschka was in pretty good shape considering her age (’94), quite well accessorised and were pretty confident she would have find a new owner among Sydney Gumtree’s ads within a blink of an eye. Just to play save, we made quickly our way back in Sydney to give her enough time to find a new house but one week had gone and no one called. We invested a big chunk of our budget in her ($4350) and want it back for founding our next part of the journey.
What it’s wrong with her?? There was something not quite appealing to buyers but what could it be? We scanned other ads and Manuschka seems even better than many other backpackers’ vans out there but we realised the problem was the REGO.
No one was willing to get her just because she came from another state.

We then changed sales technique: placed more ads this time but with no rego details, got few calls but when explained we could sell it either with the current long-expiring VIC rego or alternative unregistered they all lost suddenly interest. That’s because in order to get all the paperwork done for the sale of a VIC registered vehicle it has to be checked by a licensed garage in Victoria so either the seller (us) or the new buyer has 30 days to do so.

Worryingly, no one was interested to take Manuschka for a romantic drive on the Great Ocean Road. We couldn’t let our van get smashed from a car wrecker losing our investment.

Fearing failure, we decided to get back on the road to Melbourne, our best bet to have a chance to strike a quick sale....