The entertaining Garage sale phenomenon!

When I said I would go Garage saleing I expected a few houses with perhaps stalls, much like a car boot sale, but at the end of your drive. Not so!! What I saw was much more entertaining: much like shopping crossed with orienteering!! 

A friend said she was going, and she would look out for a few of the essential items that I still needed. I thought it may be worth joining her, what else was I doing on a Sunday morning? 

I didn’t expect what actually happened at all!! 

We went via another village to collect a few more avid garage saler friends, before heading to Otautau where the event was happening. They all looked really excited at the prospect of travelling about seeking bargains in a people carrier, with ‘all that space to store their purchases’!! We rocked up at a small hall, where we had to buy a map of the town, which would reveal where the houses were that were taking part. 

When we arrived there, around 5-10 minutes after the event officially started, there were cars accelerating out of the car park at high speed in order to get round first and bag the ‘real bargains’!! Some of these cars were recognised by the people I was with, as ‘the usuals’! As we navigated the town using a really poorly copied map with my iPhone GPS map as an aid, we kept seeing these same cars accelerating up and down the streets and round corners. We came to realise that if we were in doubt of where any of the houses were, we could just look out for one of the familiar cars who were urgently navigating the town! 

The indicators that showed where the houses were that we had to look out for was balloons on their mail boxes (and a sign too, like this one, if we were lucky!) 

The houses were a real variety from farm houses out in the sticks of the town borders, to residential houses, and everything in between. Some seemed to have tons and tons of junk, well organised in huge garages, and others were set up in an outdoor lean to. 

The first farmhouse we went to, down a single track trail from the road, was rather disappointing, just selling children’s clothes. We discussed how future sales should in fact put what is being sold at each house, which would help us plan our journey better! 

As we headed back to the main road down the track, ‘that blue car’ was heading towards us. We had seen him accelerating out of the car park and round the town in several directions. We laughed at how disappointed he would be when he got to the end of this drive, and my friend in the front seat said ‘hold your ground, and keep going, we are bigger than him!’ I drove down the track straight towards him, like dueling swords, but with cars instead. Who would crack first?! before I was forced to swerve, he did, and we all rejoiced, that we had in fact won that bout! 

We navigated all the garages, some bagging great bargains, and others scoffing at the huge prices, laughing that those people would simply NOT get rid of their junk AND not have much cash to show for it either! 

I am pleased to say I managed to get an iron, a bottle for the fridge that stores water, step ladders, glass coasters and a tin bucket for my ashes, all for less than $10 in total. 

We finished off the morning with lunch in Riverton, in a lovely cafe where we saw this beautiful monarch butterfly. 

What a thoroughly entertaining day!

Same time next week? Not so. each town usually only organises one a year!! darn it!! The locals were very intrigued to hear about our UK based ‘car boot sale phenomenon’ and thought that was most odd! 

If you think about it, the New Zealand way, you get to sell your junk and don’t have to leave your house!