A COLD WINTERS DAY

Sitting here on a cold Winters day, in the warmth of our lounge room watching the TV.

We never watch tv through the day, but we are in Lockdown 5 (I think), so what else is there to do 🙄

The Olympics are on, and although I’m not interested in a lot of it, it’s nice watching the Aussies compete in the swimming. 

Not to brag, but we just won another gold medal….Ariarne Titmus…..well done.🥇

As I sit and look out of our window I look at our caravan…waiting……Our last trip away was lovely. After we got home, unpacked the caravan and settled back into “house life” we both decided that that sort of travelling was really not for us.

We didn’t like the idea of packing the caravan, making sure not to forget anything, making sure everything was safe and secure at the house, making sure we had our garden and mail looked after, etc etc..

Coming back home in the caravan, it was just such an effort emptying out the caravan again, and cleaning out the fridge so no mould would get into it…..etc….but most of all…we didn’t want to get out of the caravan and back into “house mode”

Ed was never a big fan of the old pop top caravan. It held a lot of water on the top of the roof when it rained, we had no idea why……..and for many more reasons, he just wished we had another van. It was hard to push the pop top up, as I couldn’t help him. 

When we stopped for morning tea on our travels, the pop top also had to be pushed up. It wasn’t easy for him. 

So one day, just for interest sake, we decided that we might sell the caravan.

It seemed like a good time to sell as everyone was looking at buying holiday vans as they couldn’t travel overseas.

So we advertised the van with a bit of an unrealistic price, and bugger me the next day we had someone come look at the van and was happy to pay the price!

When it left our front yard, we looked at one another and said “what have we done?”

I was quite sad as we'd had that van for 6 years and we had been on so many great holidays with lots of great memories.😢

Too late now!!!🥴

A week went past and we decided that this just didn’t feel right. We missed the caravan, but knew we didn’t want to just go away for holidays in it……we wanted to live back in the van permanently.

We loved the unit, but it just wasn’t us. We started to scour the internet for caravans for sale.

We both had a list of what we wanted in the new caravan.

For Ed… it was definitely NO pop top….he wanted a full caravan. Easily pleased.

For me….it was a washing machine, ensuite and a good sized pantry. 

If you are going to live full time in a caravan these things were essential for me.

And we found it……everything we wanted.😊

It is beautiful. It ticked all the boxes…..inside and out.

The couple we bought it from had had the caravan from new. So that was a bonus as they had really looked after it. 

They used it for holidays only but unfortunately the lady had a stroke and they couldn’t get away in it any more. 

They were such a beautiful, older couple. We were there nearly all day explaining everything about the van and even gave us lunch. 

We promised them that the van would be well cared for and loved just as they had loved it. 

It has been such a delight to be able to set it all up inside the way I wanted it……and of course Ed has enjoyed (with a few swear words) setting up the outside, and inside, for camping off grid. 

Thanks to Ed we now have 500 watts of solar on the roof and a lovely warm diesel heater inside. 🔥🔥

2 fans wired up for the warm weather, lots of charging points for the internet, phones, etc, and so much more that I have no clue about. We have yet to buy the lithium batteries,  but as we cant travel yet, they will be bought later because of the warranty.

I’m very proud of him for doing what he’s done in the van as its all been self taught with lots of hours, watching You Tube. He never gave up!

He is also a perfectionist, so that means if it didn’t look right…..or anything needed to look more tidy….that’s how it was done.

We also want to put another fridge in it, nothing wrong with the one it came with but we don’t want to run gas, which this fridge has.

That will be installed when we get back up to Tweed Heads. 

I have been able to put a few things in there to make it like home.

Once it’s finished, I will take some inside shots. 

Hopefully if this Lockdown ends soon, we might just be able to get away for a week or so in regional Victoria. There’s lots of nice places to see here.

I cant see NSW opening any time soon with the Covid numbers they have which is a shame. 

So thats it. Another new chapter in our lives. We move from this unit in October.

I will be forever grateful that we did move to Mildura as it made it affordable to move in to a unit. Tweed Heads real estate is ridiculously priced so that was out of the question.

Being here also made it possible for us to buy another caravan. Living full time in a caravan makes it impossible to sell, and buy, as you have no where to live while that happens.

Mildura has also taught us where we want to settle (whenever that will be)🙄

The Unit we moved in to was beautiful. It was just what  we imagined we would love to settle in to. 

We wanted a garden ….well me in particular as I always remembered the beautiful garden we had when we bought our house here many years ago with Mum & Dad living in their unit in our back yard. 

But that was a long time ago. This garden here was way too big for me now to look after. Plus we didn’t like asking family to look after it when we wanted to go away……so it was a problem. 

Life is such a learning curve…..you think you want something, you get it, then realise you already had what made you so happy. 

Being we were in the middle of a pandemic, and couldn’t go anywhere, the unit was comfortable. So it did serve us well. 

But for now, we just want to travel. Anywhere and everywhere. I absolutely love driving, and Ed loves being a passenger and a great navigator. We make a great team ❤️❤️

We want to live in the van and just pull up anywhere for a couple of days, or weeks, and explore this beautiful country. 

How lucky are we that we are able to have the freedom to do that (when we are able)

Victoria is a lovely state, but its just way too cold for us to be here in the Winter.🥶🥶

These old bones need warmth….🌞🌞🌞… the soul needs the smell and feel of the Ocean, and the sand between the toes. 

Stay safe everyone xxxxxxx ❤️❤️❤️😷😷😷

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️XXXXX