Our new McFlair, at Gundagai Riverside Caravan Park!
We’ve been on the hunt for a caravan that is a bit shorter and a bit lighter than the one we have… and we’ve finally found it. Well, actually, we’ve found it and bought it and sold the Northstar Windeyer, so everything is happening quite quickly!
Goodbye to our faithful Northstar Windeyer – welcome to your new owners, Chris and Judy!
We were looking for a van that was comfortable and came with an ensuite and a queen bed – and also were keen to find one (if possible) that had diesel heating and ESC. If it didn’t have those two things, we planned to add them anyway, so that would have been a factor in the cost of the van.
As it happened, we found a caravan that seemed to tick all the boxes – but it was in Victoria. We could have given the seller a holding deposit subject to viewing, but it was a fairly long haul just to look at a van – what if it wasn’t suitable?
Trina and Ray (with Drummer) jumped in enthusiastically to inspect the Royal Flair
Then we discovered that friends of ours – Trina and Ray Morris – were going to be putting their caravan in for a service only 4 km away from the dealer. They were only too happy to check it out for us – in fact, they gave us a running commentary via phone, and lots and lots of photos, on TWO vans. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.
Anyway, Trina’s summing up was “This is the van! Put a deposit on it subject to viewing and get your skates on!” So we did.
And it’s everything that we hoped.
Smaller, lighter, diesel heating, ESC, two-door fridge, queen bed and ensuite. It also had a brushed metal splashback and colours we really liked.
Rob hitches up our next caravan…
So here we are, everyone… introducing our new van! (Which, at Ray’s suggestion, is going to go by the name of ‘The McFlair’).
And we have to mention how fortunate we are to have friends like Trina and Ray. Not only did they check out the caravan thoroughly for us, they had dinner cooked and waiting in the fridge of the cabin we booked the night before we picked up the van – just pop in the microwave! Plus a bottle of wine to celebrate… AND Tim-Tams!
Dinner all ready in the fridge, with wine – “just heat and serve!”
Finally – to reinforce the ‘this van was meant for us’ feeling – we were towing it back when we spotted a Facebook post from Debbie Smith saying “SMS me privately!” and “Call into Wangaratta for coffee!” It took a moment to connect the dots, but then we realised that Debbie was our lovely new van’s first owner! So we called in for coffee, learnt more about the history of the van, and now we have more new caravanning friends in Debbie and Ron.
Debbie (the previous owner) says: “And here’s an apron for Rob when he’s cooking!”
No wonder we love life on the road…
P.S. And another coincidence… the compliance plate was date-stamped my birthday. Yup, it was meant for us! 🙂
Back home!
