Successful pickup

We have had the pleasure of inspecting the new home on wheels, and watching their beaming smiles. Ivan has been playing with the air suspension and when Turist (who is also staying here) said you require some pieces of timber to level the van, Ivan with a big smile said, no we don't all we do it push the switch and the air bags do it all for us. He gave me a demo today as well as some future BT owners (Doug & Liz) who came and inspected our van, Turist's van and Angies new van. I am sure that the air suspension will certainly be the way most owners will go in the future. You should see them trying to work out what cupboard they are going to store things in, and they are still making a long list of bits and pieces that they still have to buy. Brian

Air suspension sounds great as we are waiting here in Perth for a leaf for our spring. Two leaves in two years. We hope to make it to Copeton on time in spite of the delay. Karl

Angie/Ivan Glad to hear all went well and that at last you have an aussie "home". Look forward to seeing both you and the new BT at Copeton. Regards Jeff

Hi Angie, BT looks wonderful and loved the pics. Hope you have a great time at Copeton, as if you couldn't!! Don't forget pics for those of us unable to attend but we will raise our cans encased in BOGGER holders and think of you all eating spit roasts around a lovely fire. Be careful Anthony doesn't bring his dirty washing to you!!! Love Prue

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Hi everyone, Just filling in the gaps of what has been happening to us over the past few days since we picked up the Bushtracker and have had a little time to process everything. It is hard to believe that we have actually had the van now for 7 days and in that time have fallen even more in love with it. We had a hectic but lovely week in the Bougainvillea Caravan Park in Tewantin near Noosa. This gave us chance to see if everything worked and we knew how to operate it, and to unpack our boxes and have a few chuckles over belongings that we thought would be relevant to the caravan lifestyle when we packed them 3 years ago and put them in storage in Tassie, or carefully packed them to bring them all the way back from London. Of course, we quickly came to terms that some of the “treasures” we packed would not be appropriate (I don’t know why Ivan thought my crystal wouldn’t fit into a caravan) and so they had to be found other homes or given to charity. We had two priorities the first night we arrived after a long day at the factory with the pickup and that was 1) to make up the bed because we were so tired and 2) to find the coffee pot. I couldn’t find the dinner set so we had bread and butter made up on pizza trays we had bought the day before, supplemented with some goodies in a lovely basket from BT. Luckily we found the cutlery or else I would have had to use Ivan’s Leatherman tool to butter the bread. Since then each day has seen us make the van more homely with our personal touches but we still have some way to go until we have everything just where it needs to be. Our time in the caravan park gave us a very brief glimpse of the friendliness that is part of the lifestyle. The Effie and BT combination caused a few looks and we had quite a few people come up and check us out. I really prefer to think of that being the attraction rather than the fact that it was because as total newbies we looked silly whenever we did the simplest things like put out the awning or annexe or emptied the toilet. Ivan has been busy with the help of Brian fitting a town water supply hose and suction hose for scooping water up from creeks and rivers. This will give us the ability to remain as truly self sufficient as possible and with the aid of the water filtration system still be healthy. There has been more “tinkering” going on from the boys both inside and outside the van and the Effie and I am sure they are all going to be important additions to the comfort and safety of our chosen lifestyle. The latest one today is putting a metal box on the A-frame to carry the generator and spare fuel and water in. This will also help with the ball weight. The inside of the van has given opportunity for the creative side of myself to be shown. We had called into the Ardmona factory outlet at Maroopna on our way down to Tassie to stock up on all their lovely specials but then of course the challenge is where to fit it all along with the other groceries etc that were needed by people returning from overseas and not having things to transfer between house and van. Thankfully the layout with its maximum height benches gives quite a bit of space in the cupboards for stowage and yet keep everything fairly low to give the illusion of spaciousness. The pictures will explain it better but we have already received comments from visitors that the layout looks bigger than a 20footer. Those who own a van or have had experience of a caravanning lifestyle will know the joy of measuring spaces to find just the right size of container to fit in it. We have played that game well and truly this week in an effort to not let any small space elude detection and yet try to stay within a reasonable van weight. It is a shame I didn’t think to take out shares in stores such as Camec, Bunnings and K-Mart before we started the new lifestyle. I find it easier to store things in tubs or containers rather than let them rattle around loose in cupboards, but then of course an obligatory purchase was a labelling machine so that Ivan was able to tell just where I had packed everything away so beautifully. One funny story of Angie actually making a mistake is from just before we picked up the van. I wanted to go to the new Camec store in Brisbane to look at stepstools (along with all their lovely merchandise) and so looked up the phone number in the telephone directory. On speaking to the sales person he gave me an address and I wrote it down and then went to look it up in the map book. The sales person said they were on the corner of Beaudesert and Kerry Rds so of course there is an intersection of that name in a town outside of Brisbane called Beaudesert. So dutifully off we went with me giving impeccable directions and arriving about an hour after setting off. We drove around the identified area a few times and were getting increasingly exasperated with each other, so I decided to ring the store and ask for more specific directions. I told the sales person we were in Beaudesert but having trouble locating them and he spluttered and said they were not in Beaudesert but in Archerfield, a suburb of Brisbane about 10 minutes from where we were staying with my brother. Lesson 1 – write down all the directions. We made it back to the store with about 30 minutes to spare before they closed up for the day. Needless to say Ivan was not going to leave the store without what had now become a very expensive stepstool. Now back to the Bushtracker. We needed to return to BT yesterday for some fine tweaking of a couple of things so thanks to Paul, Peter, Wayne (sorry Paul, couldn’t help myself) and the excellent staff. It is great to have such a professional team to deal with who obviously take great pride in what they do. Daniel, Roger and Brian at Sound in Motion have done a wonderful job in getting our audio visual needs sorted out and giving us such great service. As I said, the van will be very comfortable for our new permanent lifestyle. We are now parked on Brian and Margaret’s front lawn so the boys can do a few more things. We are on quite a slope but the airbag suspension has more than adequately met the match of adjusting the level of the van. The rain is coming down outside but I am snug and cosy inside the van watching country music videos and typing up this report. We are still smiling and can’t wait to catch up with everyone at Copeton for the Bushtracker Owners Rally. Tonight we are all going out to dinner to celebrate Ivan’s birthday. He reckons he has received the best birthday presents ever in getting to retire at 50, owning the new Bushtracker and F250 and being back in Australia with a world of adventure ahead of us. Our grateful thanks to all who have supported our dreams. Sorry to be so long winded but there has been a lot to talk about and of course we are very excited. The Babe and Buck (Angie and Ivan)