For a while now, Steve has been wanting to get rid of our camper and buy another wind-up camper van. I say "another", because we've previously owned two of the same sort - where you put up the roof and pull the beds out at each end. We've owned one which was wind-up and the other had a stupid hinged arm setup for lifting the roof. The less said about that one, the better, although it did make it to Uluru and back in one piece, which is about the nicest thing I have to say about it.
Now, when you question him, Steve has tried to give rational reasons for wanting to replace our camper with one of these. It takes too long to set up, Cheyenne doesn't have a built-in bed of her own, blah, blah, blah. His real reason (which he won't admit to) is that everyone else - all of his brothers, his parents and most of our friends - have either wind-ups or full caravans, and he's been feeling left out. That, and we've owned the current one nearly five years and he's reached his boredom threshold.
Here's the thing: they go to caravan parks! We don't. We usually go bush or beach camping, on unpowered sites, so there's really not much point having a caravan.
There's also the fact that we don't really have room to store a van. And, we already have a perfectly good camper trailer. And, a wind-up isn't exactly a top priority in our budget when there are a million and one things that should be fixed around the house. And, I could go on. In fact, I have been holding out against this idea for a long time now. Steve needed reinforcements, so he convinced Cheyenne she'd be better off with a proper bed rather than a stretcher, and the pair of them ganged up on me. Two against one. He has not-so-subtly been leaving Gumtree ads open on the PC so I will see the photos and I've been getting "Don't let it get away" reminder emails from eBay about the ones he's looked at there.
Resistance is futile, though. Regardless of all the reasons why this isn't really a good idea, he wants, so ultimately, he gets. In the end, I gave up fighting. It's not worth the effort. As with his cars, and boats, change is inevitable.
Last weekend we picked up our "new" camper. It's a 1998 Jayco Swan.
The plan was to bring it home and set it up in the backyard to give it a good clean out. This would require a bit of "trailer shuffling" (take boat trailer out, put Jayco Swan in, put boat trailer back in), but luckily we have two vehicles with towballs.
Here's where accurate measurements would have come in handy! It's all very well to say it's 2100mm wide, but you also need to remember to include the clearance lights, roof clips, handles, and anything else that sticks out. Especially when you have less than 2400mm clearance between the house and the side fence!
To say that it was a mission to reverse it up the slope of our yard and under the carport without hitting anything would be an understatement. It's a mission of epic proportions. Think "search for the Holy Grail" epic. It is a very tight squeeze, with only a few centimetres on either side between the Swan and the house and fence. I wouldn't even dream of attempting it, but luckily Steve is extremely good at reversing. As it was, after we'd unhitched it from the car (because the car is too wide to fit up the side of the house) and were pushing it back by hand, we managed to break the plastic cover on one of the clearance lights by hitting it on a carport post.
"It's ok," he says, "the garage door is wider, so when we put it under the house it'll be a lot easier." "Are you sure you won't hit the steel shelving inside the garage?" I ask. "No, it's all good, I'll just have to move the cupboard back a bit behind it because it's a bit longer than the old camper."
We gave it a good scrub, inside and out, including the canvas, and transferred all of our cutlery, crockery, pots and pans, and cooking utensils from the old camper. A few minor repairs to the door lock and step and a bit of paint on the drawbar and chassis rails, and she was ready to go under the house (so we can leave it opened up while packing for a weekend away this coming weekend).
Cue the trailer shuffling, only this time, add the old camper trailer to the mix. Oh, and the old camper has a completely different type of towing hitch that doesn't use a towball, just to add to the "fun". Boat trailer out, Swan out, boat trailer back up the side of the house, change towing hitch, old camper out from the garage under the house and put up the side of the house in front of the boat trailer (so it's easy to get at when potential buyers come to look at it after we advertise it next week), Swan into garage under the house. Phew!
All this, we did last night after Steve got home from work. The drama we had getting it up the side of the house in the first place? Imagine that at night (with only a single fluoro light to see the minimal clearance available). In the rain. With a sloped yard, full of wet grass.
But wait, there's more...
I'll say it again. Accurate measurement is key. Measure twice, cut once, as they say. Did I not suggest the steel shelving along the wall of the garage was going to be in the way? Were my concerns not ignored? (see previous conversation mentioned several paragraphs above)
Was I not, in fact, correct? You're damn right I was.
Much swearing from Steve when he realised his error. Lots of eye rolling and "I did tell you, but nobody ever listens to me" from me.
After some creative angling and decisions to cut and re-weld not one but two entire shelving units at some point in the near future (because the Swan is longer than he'd thought, as well as wider), it's in the garage. I may now be down 4 washing lines (the Swan is also a lot higher than the old camper) and can no longer see the screen on our solar inverter (to keep an eye on it to check it's functioning correctly), but it's in and we can close our roller door.
If our mate Jason hadn't come over to help us, I'm positive Steve and I wouldn't be talking to each other right now.
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