OFF TO THE CARAVAN AND CAMPING SHOW...

 Saturday was our date day....

We hope to get a new caravan in the next few years... so we are starting to look now to see what we would like... What features we would like in a new van..  bang for bucks....

We definitely want something that will allow us to free camp, so needs shower, toilet, solar and good size batteries....

We had only planned to go out for a couple of hours in the morning but ended up spending over six hours out there.

We had to plan ahead for our date due to COVID... we couldn't buy tickets at the gate this year,a s we have to buy them online ahead of time and also fill out a questionnaire re whether you have been feeling off colour and where you have been anywhere near any hotspots.  

Arriving at the Caravan & Camping Show

 

 

We arrived just before 10am and when we first walked in we watched a couple of displays at a few stalls just inside the gate.  One of the displays really interested Steve and he was interested in buying a couple of clips to use on our tarps and annexes.  We decided though to wait until we were ready to leave so that we didn't have to cart it around with us all day...

checking out clips for tarps and stainless steel pegs..

 From here we wandered a little further down the track and stopped to check out the Comfort Vans.  We hadn't really heard much about these vans, and they looked to have off road vans at a good price with quite a few extras in them.

Steve in front of the Comfort van..

This van ticked all the things we were looking for in a new van.  

Plenty of solar panel power,  200amp Lithium battery, off road, large water tanks, toilet and shower, generator bay, plenty of storage..

The bonuses were the large fridge, , an oven, and a washing machine, reversing camera and with even all of these extras, it was still several thousand dollars cheaper than a few of the other off road vans.

 

List of extras and at a good price

Layout plan we particularly liked

It was a good sized van, only 18ft which is pretty much the size van we wanted.  We really didn't want to go too big.

We got talking to the owner.  He was extremely knowledgeable and was able to talk us through the new suspension that they are now using, and also able to tell us why he had included certain things and not others...  He also explained to us how each of the vans are handmade in that everything is made from scratch and no flatpacks are used.  This means that we can have it custom built to the way we would like.  Very promising.  His reviews were excellent.  We just needed to do a little more research on these vans..  We left there feeling quite impressed...

Our next stop was to the Jayco stand.  We presently own a Jayco van and have been more than happy with it and one of the vans we really loved was the Jayco Adventurer which we checked out at the end of 2017 when we did our lap around Australia....

Steve has been trying to research them again lately, but hadn't been able to get too much information on them... We found out why when visiting the Jayco stand.  They are no longer making them.  They did show us the replacement van, but we were not as impressed with it as we were the Ädventurer".  In fact, the size of the batteries and solar, and water storeage on this van were no where near as good as the Comfort Van, and the Comfort van was almost $5,000 cheaper..  The Sales Rep here also did not know his stuff like the rep at Comfort...

 

Leaving her we caught caught looking at Massage beds and were called in to check out their beds.  They were wonderful and we tried three of them (probably spent an hour here) and they tried very hard to sell us a new bed.  I am sure they were very beneficial for your back and health, but our bed is only 4 years old and even with the show discount, these beds were over $5000.. We cannot justify spending this sort of money on a bed at this time....  They were pretty keen for us to put a deposit on one, but we were too hungry to be able to think on an empty stomach, so we told them that no decisions would be made until after we had eaten.  (We would then find a way to sneak back past there out of sight)..

By now we were pretty hungry so it was off to find some food for lunch.  On our way we run into my cousin Lorraine and her husband Glen, so we had a bit of a chat to them before going off in search of food....

There wasn't a lot of choice of food here today, so in the end we decided to share a Pizza between us....

It was going on to 2pm by the time we had finished lunch... 

After looking at the Jayco vans we had a few more questions for the rep back at Comfort so we headed back there to talk to him to have our questions answered. 

 On our way back though we came across some really great annexes with and added extension room on the end...  These were different to anything we had seen before as the extension as there were no poles but instead blown up heavy duty canvas supports.  It looked good and would be ideal when having family holiday with us.  

Steve talked to the rep there to get an idea of cost.... The whole annex and extension was made to order to fit your van and was just under $3000.  He gave us information on it and his card for future reference.

 Once again he was happy to talk to us and even asked us to do some research on him and his vans, as he worked hard to make sure that his vans were the best on the market and also his after sales service was of a high standard...  

The finishes really were well done on this van... The only thing Steve wasn't sure about was the Dexter Torflex Independent Rubber Torsion Suspension axle.  The only reason he wasn't sure about it was that he had never heard of them.  The owner there was able to explain it all to Steve in detail but also encouraged him to do some research on it to put his own mind at ease.  This suspension is particularly good over corrugated roads...  Steve did some research on when he got home and was impressed with what he read....

Toilet and bathroom in the van..

Bonus washing machine in the van

plenty of room, and a table that folds away to give more seating space...

Gas and electric hotplates with oven

Good size fridge and freezer

Van layout...

 This van is now top of our wish list.  Time to head home... We left here to head back and find the guy with the stall to get some clips before heading home...

As we were heading there we walked past the Royal Flair vans... Now these vans were amazing... Right out of our price range but still we stopped to have a look and were very impressed with what we saw.  The lady here was also very helpful and even though we made it clear that we were just looking and the vans were out of our price range she still took the time to show us their vans...

The one I was really interested in was the 16ft van which when unhitched, had a patio fold down over the tow hitch, which created a heap of extra living space...

Love how the front opens out into a patio...

Even has an outdoor cooking area...

The inside was well laid out also....  Their was a huge living area with seating right across the back and sides of the van.. but initially we couldn't see a bed.  The rep showed us that with a flick of a switch the bed lowered from the ceiling down over the seating area.  At night you just lower the bed to sleep and once morning comes, you make the bed and then raise it again....

bed lowered down over seating area....

made up bed above the seating area

plenty of storage

 

no oven in this van

out of our price range

I could get used to having a van with a patio like this...

Although impressive, it is definitely out of our price range, and even if we could afford it, I am not sure that I could justify spending this amount of money on a 16ft van.

There 20 ft van was even more impressive with a home cinema in it and again the bed lowered down over the seating area.  The TV screen was enormous in this van....

From here we looked at a couple of other off road vans... well Steve did, I sat and waited for him as my back was pretty sore from all the standing we had done.

Steve was pretty impressed with this van...

Steve loved all the storeage on this van...  It easily could store all your tools, your generator and it even had a box for firewood.. Again, way out of our price range....

By now it was almost 4pm and definitely time to think about heading home.  We have lots we wanted to get done today at home including the mowing and really had only planned to be out here for a couple of hours..... instead it was now over 6 hours since we had arrived... still we have had a great day and learnt heaps.  I love day outing like this together....

Before leaving we headed back for Steve to pick up the couple of special clips he wanted for the tarps and annex ...

Buying his clips..

At last we could head home after a really enjoying day together at the Caravan and Camping Show...