We bought a Jeep

A slight glitch in our plans, the caravan yard rang as they were going to start building our new caravan and wanted to check a few things. The last one was what vehicle did we want the electric brakes and plug to go on. The salesman said the Hyundai wasn't strong enough to tow the new van That put a dampener on things.

After much discussion, we cancelled the new van and went looking for a tow vehicle and bought a jeep which had low mileage and everything set up for towing. We had to send an email explaining how we were lead to believe that our car would pull it and ten days later they sent us a

cheque in full for the deposit that we had paid.

Now we have the caravan and the jeep but no spare weekends to try it out until school holiday five weeks away.

We are gradually putting things into the van ready to go as we had bought a new dinner set, cutlery set and linen. Cant believe how many cupboards there are and are still empty. 
The middle one is ours, it is diesel and automatic, drives well but sounds like a truck.

Change of plans

We knew when we bought Maggie that we would probably need another vehicle to pull it and had been looking for something that would suit our needs. Again we didn't want to pay too much as it was only going to be a tow vehicle. had looked at a couple in our price range but not in the best condition.

We both came to the same realization that although we like our car, it would make sense and save some money to swap our car for an updated vehicle that would be our every day car as well as suitable to tow Maggie.

Warren found a Jeep advertised in a yard not far from here and went to look at it and considered it suitable s we both went on a weekend. All good, we were going t buy another vehicle with low milage that would do the job until they told us what they would give us 6,000 dollars! Looking on the net our car was worth or selling at $14,000 with higher mileage, we both said No very quickly. Back to Plan A.

Then we went to the Caravan and Camping show and came away having signed up to buy a brand new caravan!  Several reasons for this, a little smaller and lighter, therefore no need to change or buy another vehicle, it would fit into the garage so no need to have outside and build a carport and cheaper than buying another car, once we sell the older existing caravan.

We opted for a long lead up time, one to save some money to pay for it and two, allow us time to complete and then sell the old caravan. We pick it up in December.

Unfortunately it would fit into the garage but not through the garage doors, just a fraction too high.

We selected colours for the new van and have chosen blues which is our normal colours rather than greens like the old van. Advertised the old van two weeks ago and have had some interest and one person has comne to look at it but its still here. Two others were supposed to come on Saturday but didnt but its early days yet. Warren is worried that we have too much money on it but we would like to get back what we paid and what we spent on it. We will see what happens in the next few weeks, not good holiday time at the moment anyway.

The cushions!

What a difference! The curtains although they are finished have not been put in yet as cupboards etc still need to be finished off and the curtains would make it a little darker and would probably get dusty as well. What do you think, looks fresher?

New curtains and cushions covers

I bought fabric and made new curtains, had to go back and get some more material to finish the job. While i was at Spotlight, I saw the same material but with a black background rather than the white. I thought that would be ideal for the seat cushions and bed head. They had none left! However they did say that I could ring Spotlight on-line and they maybe able to chase some for me. They were very helpful and it seemed that three stores in Queensland had some fabric. I ended up having it sent from Ipswich.

Covers and foam have been washed a couple of times.

This is the head board for the bed and below is the smaller cushion, which is in the middle, have made the others but waiting for the foam to dry. Curtains are the same but white blackground, I'm glad that I saw the white first as I would have been tempted to buy the black for all and it probably would have been too dark.

This is Maggie

We will be travelling with family members in 2015 and they have named their caravan Dennis (driving dennis Downunder) and so we have gone along by calling ours Maggie, dennis' friend.

We did view it before we bought it but after having a long hard look at it, maggie did need some TLC. The curtains were too bright for me so they came down and were washed and used as a pattern. New curtains are finished but as they will cut down on the light, they have not been hung as yet.

The bed had been raised and didntly feel very stable so Warren has lowered it and made it stronger, he took out the wire base, taking some weight off the overall total as well.

 The base board and mattress folds down over the base and it is a good spot for the spare tyre.

We bought a caravan! off E bay!

We wanted to upgrade to a caravan after having a camper van for about seventeen years. The camper is great, small compact and easy to tow. The draw backs are the packing up before travelling, stopping on the side of the road and not being able to step inside with setting the whole thing up. It doesn't take long but we wanted a little bit more room and convenience and so we stared looking for a small caravan.

After much discussion, we came up with our requirements:
1  not too big, under 18 feet.
2 island double bed (camper has an East west bed which means that the person nearest the wall has to climb over the other person to get out of bed)
3 awning or must be able to add one.
4 U or L shape lounge area, didn't want just a bench seat
5 didn't want an oven.
6 Under $10,000

When I say looking, our searches were confined to sites on the internet. We know that if we had gone to a yard, we probably would have bought and then paid more than we wanted to pay. There seemed to be plenty around with single beds or the east/west configuration. Island double beds put the price well over $10,000. We continued to look. had decided that we may have to buy a van with single beds and convert to an island bed at least there was room to do that. No 1,3,4 were not negotiable. Bed could be solved, oven could be removed. Money was neg but were hoping to be under budget.

Daughter and her family are planning a trip around Oz in 2015 and had invited us to join them, we wanted a caravan for this big trip. It was for three/four months then changed to six/seven months, we had twelve months or so to purchase a van.

Warren was checking out E-bay and decided to put in caravan, lo and behold there was one that fitted all our requirements including budget and it was within 20 kms. We had a look at it, put in a bid and waited as the time ticked down, telling ourselves if we miss it there will be others, finally 10.30 on New years Eve came and went, the van was ours!