Our Dream Caravan.........

Now this is the top 10 things Mum would have in our dream caravan (my list is smaller: 1. Water, 2. Somewhere to sleep, 3. Shelter at the bare minimum). Anyway, welcome to our dream caravan (Oh, you know that 1 week sewing blitz? It has now turned into two).

1. Electric Frypan- You can do anything with an electric frypan. Roasts, curries, stirfries, steak, chops, sausages and the list goes on.

2. Lots, and lots of storage- You can never have enough. My bed is my main storage place, and half the time I only have half the bed to sleep on! Lately, because of all my sewing, I have to sort of shove everything everywhere just to sleep. Thank God for the spare bed!!

3. An air-conditioner- Now, if you’re smart, you won't have your air-conditioner running for 8 months on end. We're not, and we hit the Top end in the wet season. But, an air-conditioner is still a wise investment.

4. Diesel Heating- Again, might not use it if you’re smart, which we weren't. Free camping in the snow with no power (thus no heating)? Not everybody's idea of fun. It was a bit chilly, bust still a fun experience. We would like to put one, in, but when we are winding up or trip, putting so much money on an old caravan seems a little useless. Also, we will use really valuable storage space, which we can't get enough of.

5. A shower cubicle- Not necessarily with a shower in it, but just a cubicle to have a shower where you can wash indoors if it is cold.

6. A kettle- We do plenty of washing up with a family, and a kettle is essential to get a hot sink of water. Would not want to see the washing up in cold water when even hot water washing up turns out bad......

7. Access to water- You can not survive without water, wherever you like it or not. We have 130L of water under the caravan, and that can support us for about 3 days (without showers, just washing up and drinking). But, it is quite a heavy load for the caravan to carry extra, and we prefer not to free camp without access to water.

8. Access to power- Power just adds a touch of luxury. A solar and battery set up would be great, allowing us to be self-sufficient, but we don't have that capability. Instead, we have a 3.5 kVa generator, that doesn;t always work. Yes, that happened at Exmouth.

9. Adequate bench space to prepare food on- Our old kitchen set up was extremely hard to prepare food on. There wasn't a lot of space, and it took a bit of shoving to cut something up, Our new bench set-up is great, giving us heaps of room (and not a dirty, stinky, rotting kitchen).

10. Vinyl on the floor, easy to sweep- We've seen carpet in caravans. Carpet! Like seriously, carpets. Come on, we don't need that much luxury!! Our vinyl floor is the absolute best, especially when we end up sweeping the caravan 6 times a day..... Our broom is shorter than knee high, and we all got a sore back sweeping that many times.