It was an uneventful ride back home from our holiday camp site at Ballina. We have stayed in cabins before and to my way of thinking it makes a lot of sense to book a cabin for a couple of nights than to go to the expense of owning, outfitting and towing a caravan and then have to find some place to stow the van in the months that it is not used. We have stayed in a few different caravan park cabins and were only unhappy about one - and that was because of all the cockroaches that came out when the lights went out - we ended up keeping the lights on all night! Ugh!
We had a great "welcome home" and almost immediately my son arrived and he and Colin started to put up the camper trailer in the back yard - teenage granddaughter and friends were going to have a birthday camp-out.

This event had been planned for her birthday in May but it happened to rain and spoil the fun. So today is not really Taylah's birthday but she and eight other girls are going to have a sleepless night tonight safe in our back yard!

Pizza and lollies and a cheesecake have been devoured and I am sure they are all hyped up with coca-cola too! They have had a camp fire - which has now burned down to a little glow and they are all cosy inside the big tent - we put a sealed electric/oil radiator in with them because the nights are so cold (and because this sort of heater cannot cause a fire).

Here Colin and Taylah's little sister are helping to get the trailer ready for the night.
It will be interesting in the morning to see how tired the girls are! I wonder how many ghost stories will be told!
AJ

Dreaming of holidays

My son suggested a trip to the Caravan and Camping Expo that was "on" this weekend. Naturally I grabbed my camera - it seems to enjoy coming on outings with me! Money might be tight but there were plenty of wonderful touring "outfits" to admire and pick ideas from. We have a fairly basic but large off-road camper trailer and have found it rather a pain to fold up ready for departure. I was attracted to one wonderful set-up that had a remote control that when pressed folded the camper down giving the single (single!) operator the time to wander from side to side to tuck in the canvas as the solid base folded over the trailer. Brilliant!
There were plenty of camper trailers, pop up caravans and caravans with pop out sides or backs, motor homes with bits that extended, awnings and fly screen dining areas that zipped on. Oh! All sorts of wonderful bits and pieces.

Here you can see just a few of the camera trailers - the tents are part of the trailers so can accommodate a family comfortably. solar panels were in great numbers as was running hot and cold water in the camper trailer set-ups. That made our seem VERY basic!

Steven is admiring the smart pull-out kitchen on one of the camper trailers - click on the picture and you may faint when you see how much it is! the trailer is magnificent and has everything you could possibly need - but it is still a trailer with a fitted tent, not a caravan.

Of course, if you have a camper trailer or caravan you need something to tow it with so there were a few people with suitable vehicles on display. My menfolk were interested in making enquiries about the vehicle in the centre of this picture - it is a "Great Wall" - I don't think I would be too keen on driving a vehicle that has such a name! They were impressed with it though! It is half the price of the Nissan that is nearest the camera. I must admit that it does look quite smart . . .
we have a huge country to explore - but all caravan parks have cabins in them and to use cabins in various parks while touring makes much more sense to me than paying so much for a camper that spends most of its life in the back yard.
AJ

Fun on four wheels

ISO 80 f/6.9 1/250 Focal length 80mm

This morning Colin and I visited a caravan and camping show in one of the northern suburbs of the Gold Coast.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, we have bought an off road camper trailer so that one day (soon I hope!) we will be able to pack up and disappear into the dusty interior - that will have to be when the flood have all retreated! Anyway, it is because of our intentions that we went with eyes open for ideas and methods of making outback camping and putting up the tent easier!

ISO 80 f/6.9 1/250 Focal length 60mm

I am afraid I was attracted to the display put on by the Four Wheel Drive club! Many moons ago Colin and I formed a Four Wheel Drive Club and went on many great excursion with our young family - and because we were a family, the club attracted people with small children as well as adventurous singles and retirees. Anyway, that is beside the point! It was because of that earlier interest that I watched in envy as the vehicles were driven over a specially constructed course to entertain the people who had gone expecting to see caravans and campers!

ISO 80 f/6.3 1/350 Focal length 39mm

Once Colin managed to pull me away from the four wheel drive exhibition - it was in slow motion so not something you would spend too long watching - we peered into camper trailers of every description and size. I had not realised that there were so many different manufactures of camper trailers. In a way they are the same but all have small differences. The way in which the kitchen modules are built into the trailer and the way the gas bottles and fuel cans are attached to the sides are the biggest differences - oh yes, and the price! You can pay so much for a canvas topped camper trailer that any thinking person would save money by buying a super dooper caravan!

Our trailer was cheap compared to every camper on display at this show but my argument is that if you were asked to spend more than that you would be very silly - you can go outback and stay at five star resorts anywhere (yes! in the outback!) and no matter how many nights you spent away you would not spend the sort of money that was being asked for these campers.
We came home happy - we found a kitchen module! Not a box that is like a drawer that pulls out of the trailer and takes up a lot of space, the one we found is a frame with tables on either side, a place for the stove that converts to hold the wash basin and upright supports at the back for the camp light for night cooking! It packs up small - ish and flat. Colin is "stoked"!
AJ

Preparing to run away from home

While Colin and I were exploring some of the delights of Springbrook we chanced to see a "For Sale" sign propped up outside one of the homes, it was for a camper trailer. Now we have been spending too much money lately on magazines on camper trailers and becoming more and more disheartened at the huge price that was asked for new ones - so Colin went door knocking. The folks were not at home so we wrote down the phone number and rang the following day.

To cut a long story short - we drove back to Springbrook on the Sunday and talked "turkey" and ended up buying the thing! It was about three thousand dollars cheaper than the ones that we had been thinking we might be able to afford and it had not even been used! The poor fellow that had it for sale had purchased it and shortly after been diagnosed with cancer so has spend his holidays visiting doctors instead.

We had to leave without it because the plug for the trailer was different to the plug on Steve's four wheel drive so I happily let him and Colin drive up a third time with a new plug to bring the trailer back down to home.

Of course the tent had to be put up to see if it was big enough. No worries, mate! It's HUGE! There is a king sized bed that is in a compartment that is on the trailer itself and the rest of the tent is big enough for a family, there are two parts on the ground - one could be used as the kitchen/dining area or as another sleeping area.

So now it looks as if we are ready for the road! But .... I have a hubby who just has to "fix things" and he has all these ideas about how he will modify the way the post go through the canvas and how the kitchen should be constructed and ..... hmmm! I think I will stay out of this!

AJ

The camping bug

Recently Colin and I have been plotting and planning an outback trip with our eldest son Steven and we had been thinking about purchasing or hiring a four wheel drive camper trailer. Even if we did that there would still not be enough room for five adults (my sister and husband are considering joining in) so Paul dug out his family tent and gave us a demonstration on how easy it was to put up and how much room was inside it. This tent was used so long ago that Kayla, the five year old, does not even remember it!

I encouraged the children to help Daddy and Grandad put the tent up - Kayla put in a couple of tent pegs and Grandad pushed them in further and both little girls helped zip and unzip the doors and windows and roll up the screens and generally had a great time in this wonderful big canvas cubby house!

The tent has two rooms, one of which is small enough for a single sleeping bag and the children thought this was the best part especially when granny joined them in there and we all lay down and pretended to go to sleep! It was a shame we had to pull it all down again and pack it away!

AJ