18 April 2013
Joel's mum has put a request in for a blog about how we live each day in the van and where we camp etc, rather than just showing you all the great places we visit! Now I thought this would just bore everyone but apparently it's interesting so here goes...like sands through an hourglass, so are the days of our caravan lives..
Currently we are bush camping so the only facilities here are pit toilets (my personal fav) and bore water (which you can't drink). This site is right next to the beach just over a big dune so the camp sites are sandy and a bit of low bush around. Not real private you can pretty much hear and see everything everyone is doing but we have been to worse. This is a shot of the campground...
And this is how we normally set up... Our van has a rear door (unlike most that have a side door) so we try and pick spots where there is bush behind us and not people! We park the ute next to the van so we can roll out the awning between the ute and van to sit under if we want to.
There is also an awning on the back of the van but its time consuming to put up and it's purple (which Joel doesn't like) so unless its raining and we need the shelter for the bbq etc we don't set it up.
A typical morning starts with tea and coffee (like most people)! Obviously when we are bush we have no electricity so it's gas all the way here (fridge runs on gas when bush). Boil our kettle on the stove in the van for tea and dishes etc.
With no electricity we still need to charge electrical items like phones and iPads so this is where cigarette sockets that Joel has installed in the van come in handy.
These were connected to the dual battery on the car, we just plugged the car into the van via an Anderson plug. Now we have solar panels and a third battery so the cig plugs run directly off that now. Joel installed the new battery under the seat at the table and a volt meter to make sure we do not run the battery too low. It's also good to know what things really chew the power etc and you can see what volts the solar panel is creating.
Now you might be asking yourself (probably not but just run with it) how do you charge stuff that doesn't have a 12v charger? The answer.... An inverter which you can plug 240v chargers into and it converts to 12v.
This is also why we purchased a new tv...it is a normal tv but came with 12 v adapter so can be run on either. Saves power because we don't have to have the inverter running as well. Oh and it has a DVD player so Joel can now watch his 4wd DVDs!
We still have a little table where we sit to eat....yummy!
I still have to do dishes, washing and clean the van! So nothing changed there. At the moment we just don't have much room when we pack up, we put everything into the van on the floor which makes it difficult to stop anywhere for lunch cuz you can't get into van without pulling it all out. So once we pull up to camp we pull everything out from the floor as it is the stuff that sits at the rear door, eg table, bbq, etc. and whola we are set up. Oh there are 4 clips on the outside of the van that have to be undone and then the roof pops up... And now we are done.
On the flip side, we explored Jurien Bay today which is a pretty little town, did some fishing, tried to catch a blue swimmer crab with a rod, and managed to catch the sunset!
Anything else you want to know....just ask!
Carly & Joel
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