FREEDOM: Collecting our Caravan (Yay!)

I've told you before that my husband and I used to own a motorhome, and we drove "around Australia" after we both finished working. We had nowhere to store it after our return so we regretfully had to sell it. That left a big hole in our hearts.... and a lot of our independent camping was no more.

We decided to do something about it..... so just after the new year - we put a deposit down on a brand new A'van and chose the options we wanted. We have two options for storage - it can go into our garage (when we finish making room for it amongst the "stuff") or it can sit on the other side of our double carport next to our car. Bliss.

We've had to wait 6 months for the delivery of our new baby.... and we went to the dealership  yesterday to collect it.

Here it is...... with our furry baby's face looking out of the door at me!

We took our mini schnauzer, Rubie, with us because the managers of the dealership have a beautiful dog, Wooki (a Lagotto Romagnolo), and we thought they would get along really well.....which they did. We were relieved that Rubie was comfortable in the van.....and she can be a little skittish about things she is not familiar with. To our relief, she was fine. Whew!

I could only take a few candid snaps of the inside...... we chose the model with the full kitchen at the front and a U shape dinette at the back which converts to a double bed.

We upgraded the bottom windows to large ones on the front and back.....this adds great ventilation and lots of light.

Double gas hobs and sink.

We fitted ducted heating and cooling (I'm not known for "roughing it"!!) the air vents are the round black circles you can see. There is another one pointing towards the bed area which is not in the shot.

I'm sorry I didn't get to picture the rear dining/sleeping area..... I'll do that soon I promise.

We will return to the dealership in about a week and collect our full annex which is not quite ready yet.

Wooki was enjoying mucking about with Rubie while we were having the orientation tour of how everything works. Wooki just had a fur-cut the day before....he normally is a lot fuzzier with tight curls like little dreadlocks!

My husband says I can now "play-house" in my van like I used to in the motorhome. I've bought a micro/convention oven, new (handle-less) pots and pans, porta-loo, pop up port-loo tent (!), and assorted other bits and pieces for the van. I've bought the "grippa" cupboard lining to help with the slips and slides - so I've got stuff to do!

We will look at driving down the coast and booking into a caravan park for a couple of nights so we can try it all out once we get the annex.

It feels so good to have a recreational vehicle again !!!!!!!! YAY!