Some people have asked if I’ve blogged about our new wheels … here it is!
About 6 months ago, after trying for years, we sold our Volvo (The Auroara). We then bought a Toyota Hiace Commuter and travelled with a tent. There were positives to living/travelling in a tent; fuel was cheaper, we could drive further in a day, we could camp at different places, Jasmine could use it to learn to drive. There were also disadvantages; after a long day of driving we still had to set up the tent, the zips on the tent kept breaking so we had to find a BCF and swap it for another one, it was really cold, we had to always be aware of the weather.
When we sold The Auroara, it had always been our intention to get another bus. We figured we’d be in a tent for around 6 to 12 months. After 5 months, though we’d all really had enough of tenting! My hat goes off to any families who travel long-term in tents!
After a long trip down from Mt Isa to do a show with the Superdogs in Quorn, SA we now had time to look for a bus!
The first one we looked at, everyone loved, looked great on the outside and in the photo’s, but on closer inspection has some serious problems that we were not prepared to deal with. The kids were very disappointed. We had three in the area to look at, so with one crossed off we rang the second one, sorry, sold one and the other I have will take a while to be ready … we didn’t have a while in that area as we needed to be in Melbourne for the Pregnancy Loss Association's Memorial Walkathon that we were performing at.
Now we were down to the last one, or actually he had two the same. So next afternoon found us looking at not one but two Leyland Tigers! Now our very good friends have one (The Tumbleweed Project) so we have a soft spot for Tigers! It took ages to check out two of them! Hey, takes long enough going through one 38 foot school bus! After about two hours of looking, poking and asking questions we decided that one sounded better than the other when the engine was running. We put a deposit on it subject to a test drive the next day.
On arriving home to our tent we found this:
A massive wind and rain storm had swept through our camp, broken almost every pole and ripped the tent in several places. It was totally beyond redemption, even MacGyver could not have fixed it! The only thing that stopped us from all falling apart was the thought that tomorrow night we would most likely be sleeping in a bus! So for our last night we all nine of us piled into the van! It was rough night, but at least we were dry! Next morning we packed the tent into the rubbish bin!
After we broke camp (pun intended) we headed off to test drive the bus. It drove well, so we paid our money and drove back to where we had been camping. Everyone was happy to once again have a solid roof over our heads and not have to set up the tent EVER AGAIN! (well not that tent anyway!)
