Six Minutes in Wainuiomata

Just like a new car, well in smell at least because it was liberally sprayed with 'new car' fragrance.

That's how long you get with the super sucky vacuum cleaner for the remarkably reasonable price of $2 at the BP.  This is the location a friend recommended a few years back, and though I believe other petrol stations may have similar facilities I'm reluctant to test the theory. Apparently, as the advertising industry can attest, New Zealanders are remarkably brand loyal and hard to re-educate. So, if my car is getting a vacuum - approximately every one to two years - I head to Wainuiomata. And so it was on Saturday (only my second visit but a habit nonetheless) - the first day of the holidays. This happy event had obviously made me just a little more daringly light-headed, because I then threw caution to the wind and tried something I had never dreamed I would be brave enough to attempt - the car wash. 

The scene from within.

I'm proud to say I managed the whole process all by myself. It was an interesting experience - very similar to that funny feeling when your train is next to another and you can't tell which is the one moving. A couple of times I hit the brakes thinking my car was rolling away, but it was the car wash rolling over me. It's very disorienting.

Safely out the other side - why is there still bird shit on the window?

I'm a convert. It's as close to a perfect clean as my car is ever likely to get, even in the unlikely event I actually got out a bucket and hose at home. I look forward to my next visit, vacuum and wash, probably sometime in 2014.