99. The Backstory

 Because there was a LOT to do before we hit the road, I didn’t actually get chance to finish any more of our backstory posts.

I will update these as we go along, so watch out for odd posts popping up here and there.

02. We got it home, now what?

 

All the stuff!!!

So, with it being such a long wait from ordering to actually picking up the caravan (thanks Covid!), it gave us plenty of opportunity to research the things that we would need for our little home on wheels.

Many, many, many visits to IKEA, Kmart and other well-known Australian homewares shops later, we had a spare bedroom almost full of things for the caravan - crockery, cutlery, pans, pantry storage jars & baskets, cleaning supplies. Cushions, fleecy blankets, bedding, towels. Wheel chocks, levelling blocks, clothes airer, outdoor mat.

So much stuff! It took us a good 4-5 hours to load up the majority of the things we had bought, but we did want to set ourselves up so that we could just throw some food and clothes into the caravan and head off on adventures.

So much stuff to pack away

Less than 24 hours after picking up the caravan, Steve was happily drilling holes for a Diesel Heater - I don't care what you think, it gets flipping cold in Australia in the Winter, even here in the West! 

Because we picked up the caravan on a Friday, what better way to start the weekend than to sleep in the caravan on the patio at home, just to get used to it. The first night was strange – getting used to a smaller bed than at home and just working out the best location for all the things we would need on a daily basis. Trying the shower, cooker, tv, air conditioning and washing machine was fun – even if it was just outside our own kitchen window!

Next thing to do was to plan an actual trip.

01. The Plan

 

A few years ago, Steve had one of his ‘famous’ ideas…

The first of Steve’s famous ideas was back in 2007 - that he retrains, and we apply to migrate to Australia. We all know how that went (Hello Perth!!!). So, off the back of that success, a couple of years later he had another one of his ideas – we would make a 10 year savings plan where we put extra into the mortgage every year for 10 years, then when we had amassed enough we would leave our jobs and travel Australia for a couple of years, self-funded by our savings.

I mean, why move half-way around the world and not have a good look around the place you’d moved to??!!

So, in October 2018 we started to save.

Fast-forward to early 2020. Covid was making travel a bit of an impossibility (both international and inter-state) so the ‘plan’ got revised. We would buy a caravan sooner rather than later, so we could travel within WA and use that time to make sure that we were set up for the major trip.

We started researching caravans and watched a lot of YouTube channels about full-time caravan living. In March 2020 we started to visit the caravan dealerships so we could get a feel for the type of layout that we preferred and what upgrades we thought we would need.

Jayco Caravanland were so helpful, and we decided that the 19’ All Terrain might just be the one for us. To be able to see this caravan in real life, rather than online or just in a brochure, was great – we like the layout and the off-road capability. We came away and decided that before we made our final decision, we would research a bit more and save a bit more so that we would have a decent deposit.

A few months later, in June 2020, we were out and about on a Saturday afternoon and decided to call in to Caravanland just to “have another look” at their caravans. We ended up putting the deposit down on the caravan that day, with a provisional delivery date of mid- to end-November 2020.

From that day, the saving got a bit more serious as we wanted to pay as much as we could so that we had as little as possible to put on finance.

Covid hit the east coast of Australia quite hard in the latter 3^rd of 2020 and, as happened everywhere, many businesses were closed due to lockdowns. We heard in late September that the caravan would now be mid-December. No worries – we could maybe have a bit of a break away in it over the Christmas holidays.

Nope. More lockdowns, more delay. Next news was mid-February 2021. That was fine – the kids would be back in schools so easier to travel.

Erm, well… maybe in time for Easter? Maybe not.

End of May? No – Issues with staffing levels at the manufacturing plant and issues with componentry supply.

Eventually, we got the call to say that the caravan had come off the production line and was waiting to be shipped to WA. That’s right, they really do send them from Victoria to WA on a BOAT! But not to get our hopes up because there were backlogs at Fremantle Port.

But wait… Was that an email to book in our pickup and handover for 2^nd July. It sure was!

So, we finally got to drive down to get the caravan and drive home with it for the very first time!

Pick up day at Jayco Caravanland

The best part(s) about the delays – we had managed to save hard and could pay for it without having to take out any finance, and we had collected a LOT of stuff to kit out the caravan (was there anything left in Kmart or IKEA? Who knew!?)

The journey back home went fine, and it only took 2 goes to get the caravan parked on the patio. Well done, Steve! 

 
It only just fits!!!