Collecting Bill The Conqueror

Up at 6:00 am to leave for the station by 6:40 to catch the 7:04 bus replacement service to Bacchus Marsh to connect with a train that would be waiting for us. Then on to Southern Cross station in Melbourne with a 30-minute wait for the train to Seymour where we would catch another coach to Wodonga where, hopefully, Sean would collect us. All went smoothly despite the 30-minute wait in Melbourne becoming 60 minutes due to "trespassers".

Sean collected us from the station and took us to see Bill - our first sighting of our new motorhome. Bill had a big red bow on the bonnet, something I was half expecting as I'd seen it on their FB page. Now we knew it was a real vehicle from a proper dealership, we had to make the large final payment.

Making the payment was simple, a couple of clicks and it was done. Waiting for the money to arrive at the dealership's account was more stressful. We had been told that a large payment might get flagged for "scrutiny" and questions about where the money came from. I kept arguing that the scrutiny should happen when the money had arrived in my account, not when I was spending it. Also, I'd already been interrogated by Nationwide Building Soc' about why I was transferring money through my account to another bank. When I told them what I was doing I was asked whether anyone was with me telling me to say that. I must remember to send them a photo. The final transfer was not flagged for scrutiny, but it took 2 hrs to leave my account and might take 4 hrs for the receiving bank to process it. The transaction should be complete by 8:50 pm - and they shut at 5!

While drinking tea and coffee, Sean showed us around the outside of the MH and then the inside. Bill is very compact with not a lot of storage, but there are always compromises and we knew storage would be short. It was going to take time to kit her out with linen, kitchen stuff, tools etc. By 5 we'd learnt about as much as we could without going camping

While my banking app showed that the payment had been made, and Sean had received the remittance advice note, they would not release the vehicle to us until the money was in their bank account. It was agreed that the MH would be parked on their forecourt behind locked gates and that Jodie, one of the dealership owners with access to their bank account, would keep an eye open for the payment. We were taken to a pub to get some food and wait for the money to appear.

The food was amazing and we killed 90 minutes before deciding to go for a walk around the area. In my optimism, I'd said that we would be on the road by 8 pm and, sure enough, we had a phone call at 7:40 saying the money had arrived. We were collected, taken to the MH, given the keys and we were off ... onto the road and pulled over to set up the satnav etc.

The road journey is 233 miles, estimated journey time of 4:20. The roads were clear and the journey was uneventful other than when we pulled off into a rest area to reconnect the phone via Apple Play, and I drove into an undercover space without thinking about the hight of the MH. We almost immediately turned it into a convertible. I was quite shocked by my thoughtlessness.

We arrived home just before 1:00 am with an outside temperature of 4C.Read more