Marla and I love camping. So much that we did it for 40 of the first days on this Big Meander in a tent as we worked our way across North America. We love campfires, grilling gourmet dinners in the wilderness, and gazing up at a sky full of stars.
But…we’re also getting older. Getting up from sleeping on the ground in your (very) late 40s and (very) late 50s is a very different experience from what it was in your 20s and 30s. Things don’t fold and unfold the same. Shit just hurts in the morning.
We’ve never tried the next step in camping ~ a campveran, so we decided to rent one to travel from Sydney to Adelaide over the course of 10 days. While it’s a little bigger than what we need, and it feels a bit like driving a giant bucket down the road, we appreciate the bigger bed and the convenience of a bathroom in the van.
We have driven the Sapphire Coast and the Great Ocean Road. Every turn along those roads was spectacularly beautiful. We have been struck by the incredible similarity of the landscapes to some we’ve seen in North American. Driving along the Sapphire Coast and Great Ocean Road reminds us a lot of Northern California. The plains on the way to Melbourne reminded us of eastern Colorado, North Dakota, and Kansas in places.
We love the adventure of driving on the left hand side of the road down the Southeast coast of Australia and being on our own schedule again. The stars are amazing, the nights are quiet and the days are full of seeing new to us flora and fauna. Marla can’t resist the urge to exclaim, “There’s the ocean!”, every time we come to another amazing ocean vista. The ‘itty bitty’ living space was a challenge at first, but we might be getting the hang of that too.
We have nicknamed the van “Marge”, as in…..Large Marge.
Her size was especially awkward and anxiety-making when we followed the Parking arrow for Target (yes, we needed a few things) down a side road. The realization that the only outlet to the road we were on was into a parking garage was an unpleasant surprise. Couple that with the one way lane coming towards us ~ which meant we couldn’t get out that way either to add to the anxiety. And….did I mention we didn’t get the insurance for any damage to the van ‘cause it’s a scam!’?
Marge is about a meter too tall for the parking garage, and as we stopped at the entrance to the parking garage her tail end was sticking out, stacking up traffic going both directions. One nice lady offered the obvious; “you’re too tall”, to which I replied “I know, that’s why I’m trying to turn around.” I only realized later that her passenger had a uniform on…..a policeman maybe? The cars sat there, seemingly patiently as I maneuvered into a 6 point turn ~ no honks or people getting out to help, just idling and watching. Eventually ~ without a scratch fore or aft ~ we broke free and got the whole thing pointed in the right direction. We definitely know how tall our van is now…and how much or little space it takes to get her turned around!
Van life has been very very to us so far. We are doubtful about getting one of our own……but never say never I suppose.
Leave a Reply