We decided in January that we wanted to travel Australia- rather than live in a city for two years after completing our 88 days of regional farm work.
Charles and I had thoughts about ‘how exactly are we going to travel around Australia?’
Do we?
- Work in a city and travel in and out via flights, like mini city breaks?
- Travel using 4×4 and camp or use a roof tent?
- Purchase a camper van or convert a van into a camper?
If you have been following our personal social media’s, you will know- we got a van.
A camper van was my initial thoughts when first researching into how to travel in Australia. It took some convincing Charles, his initial thoughts was a 4×4 with roof tent. I think I managed to convince him by showing him other travellers instagrams and their cute van homes.
We purchased the van of Facebook Market Place, after searching and searching online for a good few weeks. We had even thought about traveling to Sydney and driving back home to Adelaide, if we could find a van we liked there. This particular camper van, now Antonia, kept popping up and catching our eye.
See here for our blog about how to purchase a car in Australia for more info.
The van was at the top end of our budget, and actually looking back on this- it probably wasn’t worth what we paid. The day we saw and brought the van was the hottest day of the year, (reaching 48 degrees)!
Special thanks to C (mechanic), for helping us out with the inspection. C made sure the van was mechanically sound, other than a few small problems he gave us his approval.
Inside wasn’t to our taste
The interior had blue carpet walls (gross) and the wood used to make the bed and storage boxes was extremely heavy. The use of space wasn’t great either, with the kitchen area toward the back of the van.
Camper Van Antonia, already had solar power, two extra batteries and a good foam mattress.
Camping goods, fishing equipment, curtains, duvet, pillows, (a pair of dirty knickers!- YES) and kitchen utensils also came with the van. However we ended up throwing a lot of these items away, as i’m sure you can understand.
As soon as we got the van back home, it needed a clean. A deep clean.
Check out our time lapse video of the conversion below!
3 comments
[…] In addition to our little red car, we have recently purchased our big van, Antonia- check out our new blog […]
[…] -See here for the video!- […]
[…] 9. Drive the Great Ocean Road, this will be the last of our camper van trip (if the van makes it!) From Melbourne to Adelaide, all the backpackers talk about […]