Happy us! Our new van is here at last. Probably wont ever be cleaner than this - being collected from the dealer. We had an Ibis Ac fitted, swapped the grill for a full oven and had a battery and Anderson plug fitted.

Thanks to Tassie D for the pics about organising the boot. Have done similar and will post some pics soon. Off to Lucky Bay (Esperance - WA) for the Easter break and then a couple of weeks wandering around making sure everything works.

Cheers

You enjoy

She's a beauty Geoff & Ann. I hope you have a wonderful shakedown trip.

Great looking van,

Make sure you take heaps of photos for us

Nice looking van.

Have a great shakedown trip.

Looking forward to more photos.

Regards
John

I'd reckon Lucky Bay will be extremely popular that time of year so fingers crossed you are able to get a spot in the campsite.

Failing that, you are probably aware that there is another campsite at Cape La Grand beach that, in my opinion, is the nicer of the 2 camping areas to stay as it has individual sites separated from one another by trees and bush.

I hope your first trip goes well - it's a very nice looking van. Almost a shame to dirty it with the dust from gravel road entrance at Lucky Bay

Hi G&AChambers;,
What a beautifull van,lots of room to just be yourself.

Dont forget to give her a shakedown on roads you plan to tour on.

Cheers Rod

Hi Rod,

What do you mean by "shakedown on roads you plan to tour on"? is this just to make sure it doesnt vibrate appart?

Cheers

Not sure what Rod meant, but I honestly believe the best thing you can do with a new caravan is use it in some hot weather and some cold weather.

Let it expand and contract if you like with the differences in temperature - then any small niggly little problems are likely to surface that can be fixed BEFORE your warranty expires.

I'm not advocating taking an "on-road" van on an offroad adventure, but the more use it gets early on, the more likelihood that small problems will surface.

I'm making a list as I go on my van - nothing major so far:

Water leaks through one of the rear tail lights into the van;
A few cupboard catches don't lock closed on first attempt;
A couple of the barrel locks on my Expanda hard lids pull straight out;
Leg on my inside table has come off 4 times - screws pull out of wood;


I'll drop the van into Northside Caravan Repairs (Martin there is extremely well regarded in the industry) late this year to have everything corrected under warranty in one go.


Cheers.


Mike

Thanks for all the replies.

Our "shake down" will be a couple of weeks and maybe a couple thousand Km's. Although it will be all on road, we're hoping that anything that's going to rattle loose will do so and we will be able to call into the dealership on our way home and get it fixed. Not expecting any problems, but as Murphy says...

It'll be more of a settling in for us I think. going from an old Jayco Dove to this is a big jump for us. Would you believe that we've got lots of space left after putting everything in??? I'm sure that we'll be able to fix that.

Can't wait for the holidays to start. Don't really care where we end up. Being away in the van is the cheapest therapy I know of.

Take care all.