Introducing Elsa and Sven

We thought we’d kick off our travel blog with an introduction of our rigs which will (hopefully) be taking us around Oz. Elsa is our Toyota Prado 4WD, and Sven is our pop up home on wheels. To those of you who can recognise the names of our vehicles as a result of a Frozen obsessed 4 year old – congratulations, you’re one of us.

As this dream has been talked about for many years, our method of travel has evolved throughout. Initially we purchased a 3 bedroom tent to take with us in our 17 year old Holden Commodore (ah hindsight), however Daniel’s very real fear of all manner of Australian things which can kill you swiftly put that idea to bed. Just to clarify, we’re referring to the spiders/snakes/bugs of Australia, not the Australian wife or kids. The tent stayed in the garage for over a year until the good folks at Big W kindly took it back (#win).

Over the years we had also rented quite a  few motorhomes to go traveling around in, however after doing a Brisbane to Perth road trip in one of these in 2018 we realised that the roads to many of the places we wanted to go to, mainly the centre of Oz wouldn’t be possible in one of these. Nonetheless we didn’t have the cashola to buy one of those – man those things are expensive!

Which brings us to what we ultimately landed on – a 4WD car and a pop up camper trailer. A pop up camper trailer was “portable” enough while still offering the level of comfort we wanted especially with the kids. A 4WD was obviously needed to take us to the places we wanted to go. We would set up “base camp” with our camper trailer for 3 days or more, and then still have the car free to go exploring during the day.

So a week before Christmas, with the loan money burning holes in our pockets, we set about the search for a second hand camper trailer and car. We found the car first, and only a few blocks from our old house in the Gold Coast. It was the first – and only – car we saw and Daniel fell in love with it immediately. Liana was cautious about buying the first one we saw and wanted to look around – but Daniel was sold and the deal was done – saying goodbye to our faithful and sentimental Commodore. Elsa is a 2003 Toyota Prado. When we bought her she had about 360,000km already on her clock but we knew these beasts were built to last.  Fast forward to a few months of driving Elsa and it has passed all the tests so far. We took it for a battering at Scenic Rim Adventure Park – more to harness our 4WD skills than anything else. We then put it through its paces on a four day Fraser Island trip. Touch wood she stays good as gold.

Finding the camper trailer took a little more work. There are lots around for sale but none were in the Gold Coast. I guess when you live in a holiday destination why would you need a camper? All of the ones we were interested in were at least an hour and a half away so you had to be quite interested to go take a look. Eventually, we landed on a 1998 Jayco Finch camper trailer. Complete with two pop up double beds, a small dining area, fridge and small kitchen area. An older model but looked good for its age, and more importantly was in our price range. So on a Saturday morning before Christmas, after a crash course in hitching a trailer (I still don’t get how all there is to it is a metal ball) Sven joined our travel family.

Once you unhitch it from the car, there’s still a bit of faffing involved to set it up. You have to wind the legs down so that its level, crack up the top to push and pop out the beds and then set up the annexe. The annexe isn’t a necessity but it gives us about another 2 x 3 meters of space which we use for our camp kitchen and our clearly labelled storage tubs of clothes and living items. The first time we set it up it took about 5 hours from beginning to end but now we’ve got into a bit of a routine and each know our little roles in the process we’ve got it down to a little over 2 hours. We still haven’t managed to do it without a fight yet – hopefully we’ll get better at that too.

There were some initial concerns. The first being the combination of the harsh Australian heat with the Brit who just wasn’t built for these temperatures. To shout out to a good friend of ours Carly Morris, who in the years that she’s known us always jokes that she’s never seen Daniel not sweating. In the places we’ve lived before we’ve always had air conditioning, so a camper which essentially turns into an oven seemed like a punishment for all. And of course, we decided to head off right in the peak of summer. However, after a couple of weeks on the road so far cold showers and some strategically placed fans seem to be doing us ok so far.

The second being Ryder’s sleeping arrangements. While almost 2 he still slept in a cot, and after some Googling there wasn’t a good cot option. He is too big for some of the baby sleeping tents which are around, and the portacots just don’t practically fit in the camper.  We hadn’t even remotely started transitioning him to a bed but the only way the sleeping arrangements would work is having the kids mattresses side by side. After one fall – a good metre drop! – He seems to have adjusted. The key seems to be wearing him out during the day so that he just crashes.

We’ve definitely noticed some small repair jobs around the camper which need to be done, and there are some improvements which are on the wish list to get done – such as getting a house battery installed so that we don’t always have to rely on powered sites. We occasionally get camper envy from other rigs we see at campsites but for now, Sven is our home.

Dan’s take:

So we found a beast of a vehicle that ticked all the right boxes. Well the body work was in good shape and it started which is about the limit of my mechanical expertise. Thankfully as Liana mentioned, we’ve put it through its paces and so far it’s held up to the challenge. The wife and kids have made quick work of filling it with trash, I seem to spend all my time trying to keep it clean… I couldn’t make that much mess if I tried…

The camper trailer is held together with duct tape, every time I touch something it seems to break. That said it was the best we could afford, it’s become home and despite my constant moaning I am becoming quite attached to it. As long as my quick fix bodge jobs keep holding it’ll do the job. I won’t go in to detail about how hot it gets inside, let’s just say it’s like wearing a wet suit in a sauna that’s engulfed in a particularly ferocious fire.