It's funny how the kids incorporated the idea of having a moving home and any time they want to talk about the house we use to live in Brisbane they call it "the home that doesn't move". So cute!!! 😍
Back to the subject. We've been on the road now for 1 month, I know it doesn't sound that long yet, still sounds like holidaying, but I'll tell you that the feeling of holidaying is fading away slowly and we're realising that this is our life now and when we do face challenges we have to work it out.
In our very first post, we had the photo below showing our setup. Not too long after this photo we realised we needed a 4wd to go to some places we wanted and essentially it would be way safer this way.
We went ahead and upgraded our car, it took several weeks to sell our beloved Volkswagen Multivan and lost a lot of money in the transaction since we had just bought it. That was most likely a mistake from my end of buying things in a rush without thinking too much. We then got a Nissan Pathfinder 2013 which we are quite happy with. It's got plenty of room for the kids and to take the grand parents with us when they come for a visit.
While we were doing test runs with our Jayco Hawk Outback around Brisbane, the caravan was awesome. Plenty of room for the kids to sleep and the dining table converted to another bed which we put Maia's cot at night.
The problem is when you're travelling full time and making several short trips, you want the least amount of setup possible. With the Hawk that was a bit of pain because we have so much stuff (and still in the process of reducing it) and everything stays on top of each other when we have to pack up. When it comes to setup, we have to take everything off from the van and put outside. The whole process of setting up would take easily 2 hours which would make impossible a 1-night stay.
We put an add on Facebook Marketplace (which we bloody recommend, it's amazing how quickly we sell things) to sell the van with really low expectations, but it took only 2 days to sell it. We started looking then to a new van that the car could handle, it needed to be below 2.7T as the gross mass. We couldn't go to a full size van, because that would definitely go over the limit. Our option then was the Expanda, the roof goes just a bit up, there's plenty of storage inside, a bunk bed for the kids and a bathroom. It would be perfect.
We found one in Townsville a bit above our budget, but thinking about it, that would be our home, we would live on it full time, we could make it up after. After some negotiation, the seller accepted our offer. It was just perfect timing.
In the same day, we did the safety and gas inspection to sell our van, the guy came and pick it up. We went to the bank, deposited the check and had to convince the manager that I needed another check to buy the new van, I had to show a lot of proof for me to avoid waiting the 2 days for the money to be available in my account, but I did it, I got the new check. Then we spent 2 days at Magnetic Island and as soon as we got back we picked up our new van and happy days after that.
Lots of adventures ahead with this beauty.
