December 2016
The nerve racking day was finally upon us. We had to drive into Hamilton for Compliance. Over the Divvy and into Hamilton!! And once again I say ‘we’ when I really mean Johny.We had done our research and decided which testing station we should use. VINZ in Te Rapa were the lucky winners. We had our paper work, fixed her up to the best of our ability, how hard could it be??
As I approached the front desk I wasn’t even sure what to ask for.
“Ummm hi We’ve brought our bus in for re-registration??” (remebering that its a week before Xmas and every truckie in town is lined up for C.O.F’s before they close for holidays).
The lady peered over her glasses at me with a rather blank, slight pissed off, slightly perplexed expression.
After some discussions she deducted that what I needed was in fact a “Compliance”. This is much more difficult to get than just any old warrant. A re-compliance mean’t ever part of the bus is picked over with a fine tooth comb. Sure no problem, that blind optimisim.
“Do you have ownership papers??” She asked.
Since the bus was de-regisisted, we didn’t get change of ownership papers because technically it was a bus that didn’t exsist in the system.I proudly produced a letter from the previous owner. I had done my homework.
“You need to have a VIN number on this letter and a staturory declaration that you are the rightful owners”
What the fuck!! You didn’t tell me this a year ago when I phoned to ask what I needed. A year ago when I got the previous owner to write us a letter. Which took about 3 months to track him down and get the letter out of him. NOW you’re telling me I need a letter with a VIN number. How the fuck am I going to get that????
Breathe Gretchen…….One foot in front of the other…..Next step……
Get the letter….
All we knew about the previous owner was that he was an Orthopaedic surgeon in…… Hamilton. Holy shit its a long shot but if we Google him we may just be able to find him. So down to the Te Rapa McDonalds for some free wifi. (Why does your data always run out when you need it). Amazingly with the help of some modern technology we rang the Doctors office and thanks to some more amazing technology, the Receptionist looked it up on her computer, found the letter added a VIN number, and got our Doctor friend to sign it that very afternoon when he came out of surgery for lunch. Good I love organised people.
As for the next part of our mission, to find a Justice of Peace and sign a statuary declaration, easy peasy. Onto goggle, ring the lady, down the road to crazy cat lady’s house, squeeze in between thousands of cat ornaments, hand on the bible solely swear, job done.
There we were back at the VINZ office less than 3 hours later with all the correct paper work. Nothing can stop us now.
“you are going to have to leave the bus here overnight” the kindly receptionist informed us.
O.K back to Raglan to await our fate……..