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Published: December 14th 2014
I have been at home for a couple of days as my blood pressure had been high, so I went to see my GP who said that she wanted me to stay off work and take the readings of my BP morning and night, then go back and see her next week, fortunately they allowed me to rent a blood pressure machine at $10.00 a week
We are only a couple of weeks to Christmas and are officially in Australian Summertime and the weather is ramping up towards HOT, HOT HOT!!.
Monday (08/12/2014) I had already done most of the shopping for our forth coming trip down to cape Arid, with Andy Bayley & Karen Griffin, I can’t explain just how excited we are about going away for two weeks down in the Esperance region with our friends., I just happened to text the new owners of our old camper trailer today at 1.51and asked if they had heard the whereabouts of Gypsy and they sent us a picture of her with a message saying (Just arrived an hour ago Yippee )
We were so excited for them, Gypsy had been in transit for 12 days (Perth to
Keeping Secrets
This was not ours but it was out in the sunshineCanberra) and covered around 4,000 K’s, which is nearly the same distance as London to Moscow and back, that is insane, but she arrived safe and sound, I was so sad to see her go, but happy she was off to a good home.
So at the moment its planning, planning and more planning for our trip what food we will need for two weeks, (Especially for our Christmas Lunch) planning what we don't want to take and taking it out of the truck, planning where will stay when we leave on the 19th as soon as I pick Caroline up from the Fremantle train, its back to our temporary place of residence, in South Fremantle, hitch up Rooby and we are off our first stop is Belvedere Beach at Cape Leschenault, I don't really care where it is as long as we get away, Friday night we will probably only cover a 100 K’s but that is enough for the changing on scenery in our heads.
So Gyspy’s gone and you know we have been keeping secrets from you all, why !!! well we didn’t know what we wanted to start with and we had to do
Keeping Secrets
Caroline and Rooby some research, then we wondered what we would do for Christmas and we wondered if we would be using the swag for Christmas
We did have a fall back plan, we had the availability of a camper trailer which was available for us to hire for the Christmas period, quietly I was looking forwards to this option as it would have been just how we circumnavigated Australia previously and I know just how much fun that was.
So, when Gypsy had been confirmed that it had been sold, we were on the lookout for something that fitted our needs, the list is pretty short but we did have specific requirements that Gypsy previously fulfilled.
● It must be fully off road Capable
● Solar Harvesting Capability
● Large water storage capacity
● Good external facilities
● Comfortable
So Caroline and I had deliberated long and hard, we felt Vista RV had nothing that would quite suit our needs and although we have the highest regards for this company and their engineering capabilities we decided to place on order on a new Kimberly Karavan, we have friends Peter and Leigh Walker who already
own one so we had already had time to look around theirs, equally, we are very specific in what we needed and with the level of outback travel we have done it makes us realise what’s its all about.
When the order was placed, the suppliers did not know if the Christmas build date could be met, these units are hand made in Ballina, New South Wales,4326 Kilometres away and the transport for delivery is via road and with this in mind, we did not think it would arrive in time for Christmas as the build completion date was 6
th December, So when we were negotiating the deal West Coast Campers would have thrown in the hire of a Kimberly Kamper for two weeks if the Kimberly Karavan was not able to arrive before the 20
th of December, which was our initial get away date.
I think the most annoying thing with the purchasing of the Kimberley Brand is that everything was an extra, you start off with a base build unit then have to sit down and work out what you want, from an inner sprung mattress to air conditioning, and once you order is taken and
the deposit paid, there is a fairly small window to change the specification, we did on a couple of things, but when it was in production that was it, no more changes, the build was set in stone.
We had confirmation that the build was indeed completed on the 6
th December and it was being loaded along with 5 other units on Sunday 7
th December for its epic journey to Perth in Western Australia, the truck had already been held back for 5 days so our new unit could be slotted on the truck, but the arrival date was still a mystery.
A double driver had been put on, so the truck could travel virtually nonstop from New South Wales to Western Australia without stopping, except only for fuel and food.
On 11/12/2014 we were informed that our new unit had actually arrived at West Coast Campers and was going to be off loaded Thursday night and cleaned on Friday and have all its systems run, to ensure they were all functioning, we had agreed with West Coast Campers that we could do the handover inspection at 07.45 on Saturday morning, which might be a challenge for
Caroline as she had her company Christmas party on Friday all day.
So It was planned that Caroline and I would leave South Fremantle at 7.00am and grab a Macca’s Coffee and Breakfast on the way, then be at the Kimberly dealer by 07.45 depending on the condition of Caroline.
Caroline arrived home on Friday, in fair shape, I asked her if she had had a lot to drink and she said I am “UP BEAT, man I rolled around laughing and she is really funny when she has had a bit to drink, her company were very generous to their employees, they had all been given an amount of money that they all had to spend before 11.00 am at Karrinyup Shopping Centre where they had all been taken by coach all 80 of them, then it was on to Sandleford winery for an alfresco lunch which she said was excellent.
Now one thing Caroline is very good at is shopping, and when she called me to say where she was I knew she was at fever pitch, still I think it was great to see a company who still appreciated their employees in this tough
economic climate or this business world generally.
So being a terrible husband I took her coffee at 6.00 am and she was soon up and rallying herself earlier than usual, I was amazed what good condition she was in considering what a big day she had had
We were soon on our way to Macca’s and had plenty of time up our sleeve, the day was just beautiful and the weatherman had promised it was going to be 30 Today.
Pulling up at West Coast Campers there was a Kimberly Karavan outside in the carpark that we wondered if it was ours but it did not have the wheels and tyres on it that we had chosen so on closer inspection realised that it wasn’t, so we parked the Landcruiser and went inside.
We were shown around our new camper and It was probably a four hour inspection and hand over, that right 4 hours, going through all the on board systems, such as the capacity of the 2 water tanks, the air conditioning system, diesel hot water system, diesel cook top and the like
You will see from the pictures what the new camper
Keeping Secrets
With our Doona fitted is like, the Kimberly Karavan Company explain their product as detailed below.
The Kimberley Karavan, a lightweight folding off road caravan that can go anywhere. Kimberley Karavans are unique with their internal shower and toilet, comfortable internal seating and luxury finishes. There is 2.2m of head clearance. Yet they are no wider than a 4WD so can travel absolutely anywhere! The Kimberley Karavan It is designed to be BOTH self contained and "off-road". One feature that makes this Australian off-road caravan unique is the design of the low drag fibreglass sides and roof with such a low travelling profile.. We completed the inspection and hand over and were both completely overloaded with information, it comes with a rather large manual that will take some digesting though, now is not the time when we want to bog ourselves down with things like this, we will do it when we will be sitting watching the ocean roll in in a week or so.
Gary and Jill who operate West Coast Campers plied us with coffee and then offered us lunch, so how could we refuse.
As we couldn’t have the unit until
Monday (15/12/2014) we had taken all our bedding with us along with our pots, pans, knives forks and spoons, buckets and other associated stuff as we cheekily asked if we could load it all in as it would save us time.
We intended to collect the Kimberley on Monday after work, so Caroline will get the train in to Murdoch station, and I will collect her, then we will both drive to West Coast Campers who are opening specially on Monday as it still needs registering, having an additional gas line fitted and also the tow hitch we have requested, all this just could not be fitted since arriving.
So by now you have read her name a couple of times, again we have deliberated long and hard on her name, but we are going to call her Rooby, (Pronounced Roo-Bee) I don’t really know why we like to give things names but we do
So that’s it, that is our big secret and we hope to have any adventure with her and of course we will blog our travels.
Kj
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WanderinAl
non-member comment
wow
Looks amazing, guys! Congratulations and well done! That's the spirit that built an empire!