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  • Day 12

    Camper Vans - Tweed Heads South

    October 23, 2019 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Our plan .... no, it’s not a plan because we are not allowed to have one, our thoughts are to buy a camper and go walkabouts. Head north, see the barrier reef, do some diving, back to Brisbane for Christmas, see the kids, see in the new year, head south, Sidney, south coast, Melbourne, maybe Adelaide, back to Melbourne, catch a plane back to KL. Simple. Just need a camper van.

    We have been looking at vans on the Aussie gumtree. There are many good looking vans. Some basic, some quirky. The cost is less critical than what we lose on it between buying in Brisbane and selling in Melbourne. The most basic camper will cost us around Aus $50 per day to rent, approval $7,500 for 5 months. However, the most basic won’t allow us to take the six of us when Toby, Jessica and their partners come over for Christmas.

    We decided to go to a dealer in Tweed Heads South (THS) so that we could have a look at a range of.vans.

    THS is across the border in New South Wales. The time zone is currently one hour ahead of Queensland. If we were to fly the airport terminal is in NSW but part of the runway goes into QLD and is, technically, in a different time zone.

    The dealership had about 20 vans, we were looking at the more budget end. The photos on gumtree must have been taken by the same person who does house sale photos and can make a tiny box room look like an enormous double bedroom. We learnt a lot, mostly about what we didn’t want, a little about what we would lik (all round mosquito curtains) but couldn’t find a van we liked. Decided to retire for a coffee and rethink.

    The coffee shop was in NSW, south of THS and shut at 4. We set of and were due to arrive at 3:30 if we got a wiggle on. When we arrive£ we found that, despite being in NSW, they worked on QLD time and it was only 2:30. Very confusing.

    The previous day we had arranged to meet Carl and his girlfriend who had a quirky camper for sale. They had driven it from Brisbane to Sidney bcuase someone had said that they would buy it, but then didn’t. They were driving back from Sidney and we arranged to meet in the IKEA car park south of Brisbane. The van was certainly quirky and had been built to a high standard, but it was tiny. Not sure our marriage would have survived the time in that van. https://youtu.be/dq_TdykIqt8

    We drove back through Brisbane and continued the search for vans on gumtree and eBay.
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