adventure

Georgie Girl – the first trip.

| Chris Riley

Having a few days to spare before having to sort out kitchen renovations (that’s another story), we decided we’d take our little Georgie Girl for a bit of a whirl. For our first trip in our little Aliner we headed down to Flinder’s Bay Caravan Park at Augusta in the South West of WA. More about the caravan park and town later…..

We packed up Georgie Girl with clothes and food for three nights and headed down to Augusta. It’s only about an hours drive from home, so a nice distance for a short get away. The town is just gorgeous, very different to Busselton, we love it.

We ensured we had enough Prozac for hyper-vigilant, Mr Tilly, but we forgot to give him one before leaving home. We tied him on his long lead to a tree on our site, and proceeded to set up camp. He lay down in the shade watching us, and watching the world go by. And he stayed happy and contented for the rest of the day. Maybe he’s turned a corner, maybe he’s decided this caravanning/camping caper is worthwhile after all. He was an absolute pleasure, and without any Prozac. Phew! That’s been nearly eight years coming. Below is a photo of him lying under the table like a beached whale, in the dirt, and looking very relaxed.

The van itself goes up very easily. I think it takes less than a minute to push up both sides and to connect the door. For this trip we decided we’d try out the Avan awning which came with the van. We didn’t hold out much hope for it, as most Avan owners seem to prefer using a gazebo. Another pleasant surprise, it went up very easily. We can see we haven’t fitted quite correctly, so later today we’ll try to work out exactly how it goes. It looks like it’ll add a lovely addition to our outside space when we head off to Broome later this year for our longer winter trip, so it’ll be worth nutting out exactly how to get it up correctly.

As you can see the two peaks aren’t aligned correctly. We’ll sort it out. Our plan for when we’re up in Broome during the winter later this year was to use two gazebos, one fully enclosed against the weather and the other open for breezy fresh air, with a sun shade. If the awning works well, we’ll use it for the sun shelter and will still erect one enclosed gazebo to be able to sit outdoors in windy conditions.

The Avan is small, so our intention is to use it basically as just a bedroom, and to transport our gear. We want to get back to outdoor living when away from home, just like it was in the early days when we were in tents. We loved our tenting years, caravanning, though convenient, just isn’t quite the same. So, we’d like to get to somewhere between the two. 

Next came our first disappointment – Paul connected the water, but so far he hasn’t been able to get the pump to work. Perhaps it needs a new pump. Paul tried to work it out yesterday afternoon, but after an hour or two decided that’s a job to be looked at when we get home. We have a tap at our door, so we can get water for the kettle and washing up etc. It won’t be a hardship for three days.

Our van, being 23 years old, doesn’t have a hot water system fitted. Maybe one day we’ll get one fitted, maybe not. Although it was a pleasant convenience in the fifth wheeler and the New Age, not having it doesn’t seem to be a problem at all. In fact, it’s one of those things that makes it feel more like we’re camping.

We both slept soundly last night, and as always when camping, it was an early night. Paul slept on the double bed with Mr Tilly, and I slept on the single (cafe dining converted to single bed). The double bed isn’t big enough for two old codgers and a dog, plus we don’t want to climb over each other when nature calls during the night. At nearly 70 a really good nights sleep is becoming more elusive, so the convenience of our own bed when away from home seems to ensure a better night’s sleep.

We noticed a few drips of water coming from the peak in the roof this morning. There was a lot of condensation over night, but with all the windows opened in the van, we shouldn’t have been getting any inside the van. Maybe the seal needs some attention, another little job that my man will look at when we get home. I’m sure it’s nothing major. Gee, I’m pleased to have a partner that’s a very clever and capable ‘handy man’. I feel so sorry for women who have partner’s that hardly know one end of a screwdriver from the other. Sometimes though I wonder if Paul doesn’t wish he was one of those useless types – he’s always so busy. Part of him loves the busyness, but I’m sure there’s sometimes just a little part of him that just wants to sit down with a good book while someone else does the hard work. As I type this though, he is relaxing with his book. What a pleasure!

camping life – should we go full circle

| Chris Riley

Paul and I went on our first camping trip in June of 1980. Friends had a Combi and invited us to come away with them to the Stirling Ranges (probably one of the coldest places you could go in Western Australia in June). We purchased two little nylon pup tents from Kmart, packed our two kids, aged 7 and 4, our bedding, food and our two little tents into our little Mazda Capella sedan and headed south for three nights. We didn’t have air mattresses, and couldn’t fit another thing in the car anyway. Our friends with the combi stowed a normal foam single mattress in their combi and brought that down for us. The intention was that Paul and I would be okay just on the floor of the tent with the ample bedding we had brought down with us, the kids should have the mattress. However, by the time our mattress arrived it was late at night and the kids were already sound asleep in their little tent. We treated ourselves to the mattress for the first night, and ended up keeping it for the three nights as the kids assured us they had slept wonderfully well without it.

Similar to the bright orange ones we had

We had a ball, and those tents had several more outings before being replaced, albeit with the addition of air mattresses, chairs and several other bits of camping gear. Paul was a whiz at managing to pack everything into the car, but eventually we wanted a better set up…..

The kids grew up and we became busier, eventually going into business. We had one day off a week only, and the idea of getting into the great outdoors for that one day and night appealed as a way to re-charge our batteries. Our next camping purchase was a heavy canvas, cabin style tent.

Ours was very similar to this one

We didn’t use it that often as life was too busy to allow many getaways, and although cumbersome to erect and dismantle, it was a very snug and cosy tent. We loved it. That is, loved it until we decided it’d be a good idea to weather proof it even more with a tarp over the top, then we added a table and dining bench seats, lay back comfy chairs, a cooking station, and a multitude of ‘other stuff’. If you’ve ever tried to drag a tarp over a stand up sized tent on a windy day, you’ll relate when I tell you that camping went from being a relaxing pleasure to being very near to the stuff that divorces are based on. Thinking back to that tent, if we had kept it simple it would have been close to perfect, but having purchased all the creature comforts, it didn’t enter our silly heads to back-track at the time.

Next came a nylon dome tent. Very light and small when packed up, and very easy to erect – but oh, so cold. Next an old 1980s pop top caravan – ok, but we missed our tents in the great outdoors. Next came an Oz Tent (easy to erect, and warm, but I didn’t like it much at all. I don’t know why). Then Paul built the most amazing camper trailer to use with our Oz tent. We had personalised number plates fitted with KOW embossed in the number. KOW stood for Kitchen on Wheels. It was a fantastic trailer, with a slide out sink unit, stainless steel storage drawers and a slide out camp stove. We still didn’t use it much though. Mmmm, what to do to encourage us to get away more. “I know, let’s get rid of the tent and put a roof top tent on the trailer”. So we did. But we still weren’t using it. Eventually we realised we were just to tired from work to find camping week-ends of any description could do anything to help re-charge our batteries. We stopped camping altogether for the next few years.

Easy to erect but cold
Lovely, but nah! It wasn’t for us
Camp trailer with roof top – we were to tired to use it

Tired from work, and disgruntled with changes made to the superannuation we decided to pull the pin on work early. In 2013 we purchased a Travelhome fifth wheeler, left work in 2014, four years earlier than planned, and we set off around Australia. We sold almost everything at the time, our house, most of our worldly possessions, and off we went on our big adventure, an adventure we’d planned on living for at least the next seven years. This blog was created at the time to record that adventure. Alas, unanticipated family commitments put an end to that little escapade.

Travelhome

We became ratepayers again in 2016 so as to have a base from which to make anticipated return trips to the UK to see Paul’s dad who was going down hill fast. The fifth wheeler was still going to be our winter accommodation in the North of the country when Busselton became cold and miserable. However, the fifth wheel, towed by a Hi-lux had weight issues, plus we weren’t living in it full time so really had no need of such a big rig any more. We replaced the Hi-lux with a Prado, and the fifth wheeler with a smaller, New Age Manta Ray 16E.

New Age 16’ with shower and toilet.

It was certainly good enough for our winter trips to Broome or Darwin. In the meantime in 2017 our pooch, Mr Tilly entered our lives. We did our homework before committing to a pup, and although we realised there’d be a few restrictions on us when travelling with a dog, we felt the benefits of dog ownership would outweigh any of those restrictions. What we hadn’t factored in was Mr Tilly’s adverse reaction to travel. He’s an anxious little boy, the vet calls him, ‘hyper-vigilent’. We hoped he would grow out of it, but he never has. He’s now on anxiety medication, and he doesn’t take well to changes in environment. We felt it wasn’t worth keeping the caravan for the amount of use it was going to get. We decided we’d give camping a miss, we’d get a house sitter and go overseas instead once or twice a year for 2- 3 weeks for our holidays instead.

However we both really prefer to holiday in our adopted and beloved country, Australia. So now at the ripe old age of 69 we’re wondering if we should go ‘full circle’ on the camping thingie. We much prefer holidaying in Broome during our winter months to going overseas. Where-ever we go, we know Mr Tilly won’t be coming with us, he’s much less anxious with a housesitter in his own home than he is either going to someone else’s home, or coming with us on the road. Accommodation is frightfully priced in Broome, and anyway, we prefer our own bed, even if that bed is just a mattress in a swag, to a bed that has been slept in by hundreds of other people. A big money investment isn’t justifiable for just the few weeks in a year that we’d feel okay about leaving Mr Tilly in someone else’s care. Which has us thinking about the circle of life, or in this case, the circle of camping…..

We’ve perused all the options, and this is what we’re considering:

Yes, it’s a swag
With a fully walled gazebo

The reasons for considering this option are listed below:

We loved the canvas cabin tent the best of everything we’ve owned, that is until we complicated things by adding too much gear.

We only have a Yaris cross hatchback car now, so providing we keep to just the basics these two accommodation items will fit into our little car with enough space left for the basic necessities and just a few creature comforts. (Note to ourselves – Keep it simple).

The Outback swag is heavy canvas and quite roomy inside. Definitely not the size of the canvas cabin tent, but it definitely has the coziness of canvas. The biggest problem we anticipate with it is the nocturnal loo visits that come with advancing years. We’ve sussed out a few options to get around that though – more about that if we decide to go ahead with this next hare brained scheme.

The gazebo alongside will give us a dressing room and shelter from the elements if we want to be indoors. It can be closed up against the elements with the additional walls, or the walls can be opened up making it an open sun shelter. We’re thinking the two items of accommodation together will be a bit like a cross between our first little pup tent and our bigger, cumbersome, but oh so comfortable cabin tent.

Now the big question we have to ask ourselves:

Are we too old to go full circle, too old to start using a swag? Paul is still very agile, but have I lost too much of my agility to be able to cope with this? I’m definitely a lot less agile than I was in 1980 when we bought our first pup tent, but I don’t think I’m much less agile than I was just 20 years ago. 20 years ago at 49 I certainly wouldn’t have been wondering if I was too old to start ‘swagging it’. But if this idea progresses we’ll both be 70 when we take our first road trip in a swag…… Pleasure, or pain – that is the question?