Try before you buy

Try Before You Buy …


I originally did a blog called 'One month off, our road trip adventure' which introduced my husband and I and saw us on our very first trip together in a borrowed very old, very small Jayco Finch Campervan.

We had not long bought our second hand Toyota Land Cruiser 100 series car, and had new bull bar, lift pack and other gadgets installed with the help of the wonderful folk at ARB in Fyshwick, Canberra.

I lovingly but to my husband's total disgust named her 'Lady Cruiser'. She is the apple of my eye and a realisation for a long time dream to own a four wheel drive.

We wanted to hire a caravan and travel for a month to see if we could firstly live with each other full time in a confined space. Secondly we needed to know if would like to do some caravanning and whether we would like it. All this before investing thousands in a van and discovering either a divorce court or an expensive folly. We priced some vans  for hire and they were very expensive even to hire for a short while.

Thats when our good friend came to our aid. He had recently purchased a second hand camper for taking on short holidays and over the summer at Lake Burrinjuck with friends. A single fellow he didn't need an elaborate and large van and didn't want to spend lots of money either. It took him a number of months to track down this dear little van for the right price. Hence the Jayco Finch, which was made in the 80's came into his possession and he kindly offered it to us for our trip for FREE!!!

Our dress rehearsal was in Bombala in July 2012. It was a friend's farewell and we went away and camped in the caravan park, quickly realising that the internal space of the Finch which had the floor size of a box trailer would be a test of marriage as space was at such a premium. Luckily the beds which folded out either end served as storage area. We had to take lots of warm clothes and they are bulky to store making the space look constantly untidy. We survived our first weekend away, made some adjustments, allowances etc. and away we went on the big trip.

In short if you did a course on living in a caravan for a year, you would not have learned as many lessons as we had in that first 2 weeks. Yes our holiday was supposed to be for a month but after dragging the poor old finch up a number of corrugated roads and experiencing the fridge breaking down and the light falling out of the ceiling -  so we had to buy a lantern, the clips would not clip the roof down properly. It decided it would not crank up and then it would not crank down either and a few other things, husband cracked it and decided we should cut the holiday short before he hated camping all together. In hindsight it was probably a wise move.

So we came home. Both with the shits. I wanted to continue on, he wanted to come home, neither was happy.

The little van which taught us so much about what it was to go caravanning!

The compromise - we booked the van in to get repaired by the local Jayco agent in Queanbeyan and Greg got on line, booked flights using accumulated Qantas points to Bali and we jetsetted off (flying Jetstar, first time with Jetstar and probably the last) for 10 days to stay in a 5 star resort in Nusa Dua.

….But to me it wasn't my one month off road trip I had dreamed about for 12 months in spite of it being lovely and hot and Indonesian. It was kind of weird.

However - husband Greg and I did a lot of discussing on what worked and what didn't and what we might like to do. This took a few evenings and a few nice bottles of red wine. The nice thing was that he wasn't ruined for travelling in a caravan and I was red hot keen to get out and see everything in this vast land of ours right now - don't wast another moment!

Greg has already had a work related, stress induced heart attack. I never would wish that situation on anybody or any spouse/partner that has to go through it as well. Its not only about the person who has the heart attack as the implications including the scare of losing that person is ever present for the other. There isn't support for the patient or the spouse when the heart attack does not result in any surgical fix. Enough said. We had a really rough time. Our good GP had moved down the coast and we hadn't needed another one. The one we found was rubbish. We didn't know who to turn to and the GP couldn't have given a stuff. The result was Greg went back to work after a total breakdown of mind and body after 2 weeks. He pushed on and the end result was ever spiralling tiredness which has now manifested itself as Chronic Fatigue Sydrome. Eventually through a consultation with The Australian Biological Testing centre We met some caring people he is under a good specialist in Sydney. There is no cure, no reason, no management plan as to why he won't get better. We are still trying all sorts of things including vitamins, exercise. etc. Nothing works.

We started planning to purchase a van with our new found knowledge on all things caravans. We bought caravan and camping magazines for tips and information, trawled the web. Even went to the caravan and camping show in Melbourne a couple of times.

Our trip in our borrowed resource had us conclude:

Even though you may not want to drag said van up rough bush tracks, some of our roads are that rough that nothing but a full off road caravan (unless you are going to just stick to the bitumen) will do.

Everyone said that when camping you live outside so inside he van isn't so important  - which is true unless there is a howling gale at wind chill minus 5 degrees or its raining torrentially  in which case you want to be indoors and preferably not in each other's face too much. It would be nice for 2 people to be able to stand up in the van at once.

Whilst indoors it might be that you want 2 laptops open on the table at once so you can blog and the other can photoshop photos taken for the day or something like that. The table also has to accommodate space for a wine whilst working. Very important

Having to get dressed in the middle of winter to go outside for a toilet stop is one of the most inconvenient things to do in the middle of the night. So a toilet would be good - and while you're at it throw in a shower. And if we can afford it - a washing machine - yes very spoilt. However in Cobar our unlinted clothes came out of a caravan park washing machine which I had previously wiped clean with disinfectant - with someone else's lint. Like YUK someone else's lint. So a washing machine - if for only one's smalls!

No old ladies' curtains and fabric upholstery. Enough said, you all know what I am talking about.

So with our checklist of 'must haves and desirables' ascertained we were ready to find a van. Not immediately but maybe one would come up one time...