We’ve been in our camper van for two weeks now, so we’re halfway to completing our journey along the east coast of Australia, finishing in Cairns. Travelling in a camper van has had some amazing benefits and sometimes even some hurdles.
We’ve got a two-berth camper to sleep, two people. There is a small fridge, a stove, microwave and storage spaces. As well as a seating area which doubles up as the bed, a table (indoor) and also an outdoor table with two camper chairs. All the essentials you need for a few weeks travelling the coast.
Our lil camper van
Now, what's the tricky part…
Making the bed every single night. Now it’s usually my job to make the bed each evening which consists of putting wooden planks in between the chairs and placing the back seat cushions down. We do have a duvet (which is never needed due to the hot weather) and a pillow each. Well, I was straight to Big W (large Australian supermarket) to grab another (softer) pillow. But making the bed isn’t the hardest part, it’s the getting to sleep in the heat that is difficult. There are mosquitoes in most places so leaving the back door open isn’t the brightest idea. (Especially when they seem to think I’m the tastier one out of the two of us)! After a week of sweaty nights, we headed back to Big W to invest in a fan... and what a genius idea that was!
The cooking part
We take it in turns to cook each evening just so it is fair and we both don’t mind cooking so it works well. There isn’t enough room for us both to cook in the campervan so it’s just down to one of us to cook up one of our many simple dinners. Our personal favourites include pesto pasta, tomato pasta or meatball pasta! For travellers on a budget pasta, which is only $0.65 a packet is the perfect option (even if I do come back looking like a fusilli pasta shell).
The campsites
Part of our contract with the van is that we have to park in campsites for the night so parking on the side of the road isn’t an option. Which I’m thankful for because we don’t have a toilet in the campervan and I’ve heard there’s a lot of spiders and snakes out in the wild!
We’ve had a mixture of campsites, some good, some very good and some just bad. But as long as you’ve got a site spot, a toilet and shower you're pretty much set. Although it does help when you turn up to the campsite to discover it has a pool and WiFi - you’re in travellers paradise then.
Luckily we haven’t experienced a spider in the toilet situation just yet, so I’m taking that as a very good sign, unlike the sign below we saw at one campsite!
Not the best sign to see on your run..
The driving
Our driving durations vary on where we’re stopping next. The longest drive we’ve done so far is six hours and the shortest only about an hour. We decided that we wanted to take it easy and enjoy the drive rather than feel rushed or pressured to drive long hours each day. So we tend to stay in campsites for around two-three nights so we can relax and explore the area we’re in.
Andy is the driver. We both agreed that because of 1. I shouldn’t drive the van and 2. I probably wouldn’t be able to. So the driving is down to Andy, but he loves driving so again it works well. What do I do when we drive?.. I become the DJ. Anything from Whitney Houston, Eminem to One Direction.. will be played on the many road trips. Sometimes the driver doesn’t approve but puts on some old school Steps and you’ve got him shuffling in his seat again.
If we've had enough of music we either try to get lorries to honk their horns (taking it back old school). Or we just wave at all other camper vans as we go, like today we saw the same camper van three separate times on our journey and each time they waved back to us. It's the little things in life that make you smile, I hope they found it as funny as we did.
However, directions and navigation aren’t either of our strong points, even with a sat nav fitted into the van we still experience our problems (I’m not even surprised). If it’s going left even though the sat nav says right, or the sat nav dying on us or me trying to navigate Andy through a car park we’ve had it all. But that's part of the fun right?
Now, what’s the best part about the campervan?
The freedom.
We have the freedom to drive when and where we like. We also don’t have to worry about packing or unpacking our backpacks for four whole weeks. If you travel with a backpack you’ll know how much of a luxury that is. We’ve had many moments carrying our backpacks in the heat, with sweat on our backs and just silence between us both because the exhaustion of our 15kg bags is all too much.
So far we’ve stopped in some beautiful places (featured on my Instagram: amycerys_) seen loads of gorgeous beaches, different towns and have even changed time zones on the way!
Bondi beach
Overall the campervan life is great, sometimes tricky (you don’t get a lot of personal space) but we’ve learnt to deal with it, plus you open your door and you’ve got the great outdoors right on your door step.
Now this is uploaded.. it’s time for me to eat (you’ve guessed it) pesto PASTA! But lucky enough for us tonight we’ve got some spare veg to throw into the mix to really spice it up! I can’t wait for the day until I can feast on some garlic bread again..
Until next time and the next free WiFi opportunity!
Amy x