BUYING A VAN IN CAIRNS
2nd - 15th September 2015
INTRODUCING VANWELL!! (VANNY TO HIS FRIENDS)
Our travel agent bloke back in London had got confused and booked us an annoyingly long string of flights to get from Bali to Cairns. We left Bali in the evening on the 1st Sept, we stopped by Sydney in the south, Brisbane in the middle and finally Cairns in the north, mapping out our planned trip in reverse. We even got to see Sydney Opera House from the aeroplane window! We checked into Tropic Days Hostel in Cairns round 7:30pm. It is a very welcoming and homely place. As well as a range of various sized rooms there was a large space out in the garden under a canopy for camping as well as a bunch of hammocks, a communal BBQ and a pool. However after living it up for peanuts in Asia the cost of a room was a bit of a shock. Especially as it was the size of a shoe box and didn't have an ensuite bathroom, balcony, or view. What the hell!
The famous Monday night BBQ at Tropic Days, where we tried Crocodile, Emu and Kangaroo, and were treated to a didgeridoo show.
For part two of our little adventure our plan was to start in the north of Australia and travel the east coast south riding the bus, however after experiencing the freedom of motorbiking around various parts of Asia we hatched a new plan to buy a van and go it alone. Our goal when landing in Cairns was to find a small kitted out van for as cheap as possible and go on a road trip down to Melbourne, where we would probably need to get jobs as our money would be running low by this point. We weighed up the option of buying vs renting, and because we thought we would take 2-3 months on the road trip, plus we would like to have a vehicle for the year (we have a one year working holiday visa), it made sense to buy it at the beginning.
Being in Cairns has been strange for many reasons. It was strange being in a place where everyone speaks English as their first language. The streets are really wide. I can drink the tap water without fear of repercussion on the toilet. People don't walk anywhere as everyone has great big cars. There's no street food for 20p everywhere you turn, in fact there's no food anywhere as we are staying in a residential area where there's no cafes, no shops, just used car garage after used car garage. Which is handy actually as our main reason for being in Cairns is to buy a van to begin our great Aussie road trip. We spent many a night at Green Ant, a Mexican restaurant that was the only eatery within walking distance of the hostel. It did a bloody excellent backpacker menu, where you could get a massive plate of nachos or a roo burger for $10 and they brewed their own beer which was also damn good. However, after eating there 5 times, we needed something new!!! In a little retail park around the corner, there was also a Subway, so we ended up there for lunch too many times as well.
The other reason it has been so weird is that we have spent the best part of a week catching up on the past 6 months. We have had so many chores, some fun and some mindnumbingly boring that we have had to get through before we feel ready to move on. These include getting our internet banking up to scratch (we haven't looked at our accounts for months), backing up all our photos on the hard drive that lucy brought out and up to Flickr to make sure they are completely safe, Will finalising his website and getting his portfolio up to date, getting the blog and Instagram up to date (yeah right!), getting phone contracts and a new phone for me, buying new pants, the list goes on. Luckily, the hostel we have been staying at has been perfect for our needs. We have spent days cooped up in our room, surrounded by lists, manically trying to tick things off.
Alongside smashing through our to do list, we were also keeping one eye on gumtree at all times, looking for new vans to appear for sale. At first we thought we'd be in Cairns for about a week getting everything sorted and buying the van. We finally left to start our trip after two weeks, as things took a little longer than we'd anticipated...
Firstly we needed to buy a van. As we knew nothing about A) buying a van and B) buying a van in Australia, we had a lot to learn. We swung by Travellers Autobarn, an Australia-wide company that specialised in hiring out vans to travellers, and also selling off ex-hire ones. The guy there was very knowledgable and luckily for us, was willing to share all he knew, even though it was pretty clear that we couldn't afford what he was selling. He told us a few things to look out for, such as signs of the engine overheating. He also listed a couple of makes and models that would be good to go for. He advised us to either get a Mitsubishi or a Toyota as the parts are much more readily available than other makes. That was good as it narrowed down our search on Gumtree considerably. With all this new information, we were ready to properly start our search.
We were so desperate to buy a van, we almost gave these jokers a call...
We started arranging viewings of vans and unfortunately missed out on a Mitsubishi Express that a guy called Chris was selling at our hostel, as we were too slow off the mark. Lesson learned, we realised we'd have to act fast if we liked something. We went to see an empty van being sold by a mechanic called Shane. The Travellers Autobarn guy had advised us to get a pre-purchase inspection on any vehicle we were serious about, to make sure it was up to scratch. Luckily we did this on Shane's, only to find out there were several very serious faults with the van and we'd have had to spend to the same again as the cost price to get it up to scratch. It was a narrow escape and we were so relieved we'd spent the $100 (Roughly just shy of £50) to get the check. After a few days it felt like we were getting nowhere, when in actual fast we'd learnt so much and just had to accept that these things take time. We viewed a few more vans, one which we loved but the French girls who owned it weren't selling it until the end of September and we couldn't wait that long. Other people on gumtree simply wouldn't get back to us, or would text us to say the van had sold that day. It was getting pretty frustrating to be honest, in the whole of our travels we had always been doing and seeing so much, and this just felt like things were moving far too slowly if at all.
In the end, we realised that the perfect van didn't exist, and we would have to buy something and make certain compromises if we were ever going to leave this bloody city! We bought a Mitsubishi express, circa 1997, with 277,000 km on the clock. We got it cheap as the sellers flight was only days away and they wanted to get at least something back. We spent $2750 Aussie dollars, around £1200. Most vans that were already kitted out were around $4000 - $4500 so that left us with a minimum of $1250 to spend. We never intended to kit out a van ourself, we thought we would find one that we liked and it would be ready to go, but sometimes you just gotta roll with the changes! The van we bought had a very basic single bed in the back and nothing else. We decided to go for it, rip out the bed, re-use whatever wood we could and do it ourselves. It appealed to us as we could design the whole thing and buy everything new.
We researched putting in a second battery so that we could run a fridge and charge up our electrical items easily, but decided against this when we were told it would cost $1000 for the second battery to be installed and $500 for a decent portable fridge. We would make do with an 'esky' (cool box in Australian) and ice!
So how did we turn this
Into this, in just 5 days...
Day 1 Wednesday
The first thing we did was give our new friend a name, so we would like to introduce you to Vanwell. (Vanny to his friends) and he needed a wash so our first outing was to McSuds Car Spa. We wanted to see him in all his glory (and also to check for any leaks) fortunately, everything stayed dry inside. Phew!
Next we had to get rid of the dreadful yellow paintwork. The previous owners had done a few home improvements - the blue panels we liked, but the yellow had to go. Our options were: spray paint, normal paint, or strip the spray paint off completely. As neither of us felt confident in our abilities to get a good finish with spray paint, we opted for the basic enamel paint option. At first I was too sparing with the paint taking my time to carefully apply an even coat but after a while we just slapped it on, and it turned out pretty good.
Most vans of this model we'd seen didn't have the 4 side windows as ours did, they only had one on the sliding door. We opted to cover the other 3 with white vinyl. Our aim was to make it look as close as possible to a normal metal panel, but you can't stick vinyl to the rubber window seals, so the panels have a black border. We didn't mind this too much. We collected a couple of quotes and were told it would be $200 to apply the vinyl to the windows. However when we were buying paint we spoke to the guy who said we should just give it a crack as apparently it was pretty simple. We bought the vinyl for $20 and did it ourselves. $180 saved! It was tricky and fiddly, and we needed one practise go to make all the obvious mistakes, but once we had our system sorted we were flying! The knack was to fix the piece in the middle of the window with masking tape, peal off one half and cut away the backing, clean the window and get it really wet with soapy water, then slowly lay the vinyl down, working from the middle out, smoothing it as you went with a credit card. We repeated on the other side, then came the final, super satisfying smoothing out stage. You had to push out all the excess water and air from under the vinyl with the credit card. Then using a razor blade you cut the excess vinyl away, staying close to the rubber seal to get a nice cut. Simples!
The van at the end of day 1, a nice blank canvas.
Day 2 Thursday
Today was the day to design the bed and storage areas for the van. We wanted to keep it really simple, we headed over to Bunnings, Australia's answer to B&Q. We got chatting to a guy who was quite simply a DIY guru. He really helped us out with the construction, gave really helpful suggestions about other things we'd need out on the road, and did us a really good deal on all the wood we needed. He also told us that we should buy a drill to build the bed, but that if we then 'decided it wasn't quite right for our needs' we could bring it back (once we were finished, of course!)
Armed with new knowledge that we needed not just 4 legs and a ply wood top, we set about measuring everything. We purchased two cool boxes and based the height of the bed on them, as we wanted the bed as low as possible in order to keep the living space above as big as we could so we didn't feel like we were sleeping in a coffin.
Originally we thought the width of the bed would be determined by a double mattress size (138cm) However the widest ply Bunnings did was 120cm. After umming and arring, we decided to go for the narrower width, as we remembered we'd seem a foam mattress on gumtree that maybe we could get cut down to size. We text the guy and he said we could come round at 5pm to collect it. Brilliant. We headed out to meet him and met his wife instead. It was $25 and was hardly used. She even gave us the name of a store that could cut it down to size for us, that just happened to be a few streets down from her place. We phoned them and they said they could do it, I asked the price and they said they would do it for free! We rocked up and true to their word, they popped it on their cutting table and in thirty seconds flat we had a perfectly sized mattress, all for £12.50. We also checked the price of a new 120mm mattress on our way out which would have set us back $200 (£100)... result !
Day 3 Friday
First day of building the bed, we started off by making the 3 frames that would support the top. We had to navigate past the wheel arch at the sides and the fuel tank at the front. We used super long screws and metal brackets to hopefully give strong support. By the end of the day we had built the entire frame, complete with longways supports to give the structure stability. All that was left to do was screw the ply top to the base and build the shelving at the end of the bed that would store our kitchen items. We must have gone back to Bunnings 3 times throughout the day as we realised we needed different length screws or different types of brackets, but it was so worth it as it was structurally sound and looked awesome!
That night was our first night sleeping in the van, and we were both super nervous and paranoid that we'd be moved on. We even parked somewhere then moved somewhere else as we heard a guy on his phone and it sounded like he was reporting us and the van behind us. There are 'Rangers' in Aus whose job it is to fine people camping in vans in non-designated camping spots. We'd heard the fine was $500 per person, so obviously did not want to get caught!! We moved to another spot and were due to go out in town and meet our friends Courtney and Georgie from the hostel. However, Will managed to lock the keys inside the van. On our first night. A phone call and $100 later, we were back in and ready to go out. Thank god it was ladies night so we could claw back some of the money we had lost on free champagne!
Day 4 Saturday
Today we had to build the shelf at the back, which would house the stove and other cooking bits and bobs. We picked up a stove at Rays Outdoors, which was on sale for $99, down from $140. As it was on display, I cheekily asked if we could have extra discount. She said no, but if you never ask you never know eh!
Things we had to consider when buying a stove - there are two types, ones that use small butane canisters or LPG in a refillable gas container. We are trying to be as green as possible on this road trip so went for the refillable. The amount of small canisters we would use would quickly add up, and the other gas cooks much more economically as it gets hotter quicker. There has also been a nationwide recall of the small gas stoves that take the small butane canisters as a few have blown up so there was only one model on offer of that type and it only had one ring and we wanted two. Apparently someone used a pan that was much too big and it pushed the heat sideways, over the gas canister, which blew up. Luckily no one was seriously hurt, but ALL stoves of that type in Australia were recalled and a new safety device has been fitted.
With the width of the stove determining the placement of the shelf support, it luckily lined up with the leg below, with only milimetres to spare! We screwed the shelf supports to the base then popped the shelf and back on. Job done! As we were whooping, the guy who lives next door to the hostel, (who has been watching our progress as he spends most of his time sitting out on his front porch) congratulated us. We gave him the last bits of wood that we no longer needed and he seemed pretty chuffed with them.
As Sunday is the day of rest, we didn't do any work on Vanny and instead went on a Great Barrier Reef tour. See Wills post. Luckily we came back on the boat we went out on... (we read about some poor unfortunate souls in 2000 that were actually left at sea and were never to be seen again)
On Monday we took the van for its service and were told there was a coolant leak that needed to be fixed. Vanwell had to stay overnight, so we were back to the hostel (after telling them that we were definitely leaving that day). It gave us sometime to sort out some more normal stuff like insurance, breakdown cover and Hills & Waves sticker designs.
Day 5 Tuesday
We really wanted to leave as today marked 2 weeks that we had been in Cairns and that was bloody long enough to have been in one place. We were both itching to get on the road and start properly living the van life. However, as always, there were rather a lot of chores to get done before we could finally set off as we still had lots of bits and bobs to buy, as well as food, ice, spare oil, gas, water etc before we could drive out of town. We hit Cairns Central Shopping Centre hard, and acting as if we were contestants on supermarket sweep, we swiftly purchased bedding, sheets, storage boxes, a bin, and various other mundane items. Buying the boxes was especially tricky, as they had to slide on the carpet and most had jaggedy edges on the bottom that wouldn't bloody slide. I lost count of the amount of times we ran in and out of Bunnings and K Mart, exchanging different sized boxes to see if they fit!!!
At five o'clock we left Cairns behind us and headed north on the Captain Cook Highway. We only made it half an hour up the road to our first free camping spot. But with forest and woodland to our left and the ocean to our right it was another world. Now all we had to do was to work out how to use the stove... Our road trip had begun. We would swing back through Cairns to get the Hills & Waves logo applied to the Van in a weeks time.
