Birth of a Camper.....!

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It was important to get some reliable and value for money wheels for our 3 month Kiwi adventure so we invested 10 days into our search for the perfect travel companion...

Our budget was such that we could have blown on it on the all singing, all dancing campers sort of equivalent to the ones available to hire or we could try to get a bargain whilst not ending up with a clapped out one that wouldn't get us to the end of the road! There was a limitless supply of vans to peruse as many young people were coming to the end of their NZ adventure and heading back home or to even more exotic climes. This created an unique market where they thought they could sell a van as a camper even if it just was a van with a mattress in the back and precious little else for three to four thousand dollars just because that's what they'd paid themselves at the start of their trip when they had money to squander. Of course, being prickly grumpy late 30 some-things (I'm clinging on to that for dear life!), we weren't having any of that and offered what we thought the vehicles were worth to us given the changes we would have to make. Some of our offers met incredulous cries of despair from the would be entrepreneurs we encountered!

Happily though we met Tom who had looked after his roaming home pretty well in the ten months he had it and was more realistic on what could be achieved. So after some pretty intensive competition on Trade Me we finally won our home for the next few months for a couple thousand NZD.....still difficult to know if that's good or not given the market we were in but better than we had hoped and we had got some history on it which was better than most!

We stopped off in camp site just south of Auckland in order to get some new tyres after the weekend. Little did we know was that this was the stop off for most of the campers before Auckland. We met a rather irritating Dutch man who kept telling us to wear sun screen and remember to use our gears going up hill. Thankfully he did tell us something of use. Before the campers sell on the van they leave loads of stuff at the site for the next bunch of travellers. This meant we got loads of food and supplies – pots and pans and a camp table all free. We worked out it would have cost us around 150 dollars so we were well chuffed.

All our pent up excitement could now be released as we prepared to make our new acquisition ours and try to lavish some much need TLC on it. He is a 1993 Toyota Townace heavy diesel but squares up well to the challenges ahead and has had a new lease of life now he has some new boots (tyres) on and the tracking is now correct! Anna was beside herself with glee as she had free rein to buy what was required to make it comfy for us whilst I assisted in the cause (i.e. did as I was instructed to do!). The aim was to change the fixed mattress base to become a folding area for a table and seating area but after a good clean out, some new bedding, bookcases adapted to be storage compartments and other home touches we're living with it as it is and see how we go!

We're now snug as bugs in it and enjoying our first expedition northwards in our beloved transporter called Scrappy Doo (congrats Char!), we hope to improve his looks further along the way but he's a fighter and we're very fond of him already! The first instalment of our fun times with him is on the way........

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