Travelling Oz

Come Xmas (2007) and we need a break, so we take the caravan on it's maiden voyage to iron out the bugs and make sure we've equipped it with everything we need.

The caravan tows a treat and is steady as a rock at 100 kph and everything works perfectly. The only problem I have is, my feet are hanging off the end of the bed and although it's a minor thing, I find it annoying and it bugs me, but overall, everything else works well and it suites our lifestyle, we made the right choice.

Anyway, come March 2008 and the Perth Caravan and Camping show is on and I need to look for a car fridge, generator, TV satellite dish plus whatever other show specials are on offer, so off I go. See the Jayco stand and can't resist having a peek just to see how much they are selling our model for. Walking round and there it is, our caravan with a slide out and full size queen bed. Rush home, pickup Marlene and we're back there in a flash and she likes it as well coz the bathroom is bigger and there's also more room around the bed. It's bigger than ours at 23ft and $5,000.00 more, but we liked it and did the deal there and then.

We had a few teething problems with this one, but Jayco fixed them up under warranty without any bother. The air conditioner packed up, was repaired then packed up again and was then replaced with a new unit so well done guys.

We did find the ground clearance was a bit low and the rear nearly bottomed out a few times, so we under-slung the axle and instantly gained an extra 10cms ground clearance. It didn't make any difference whatsoever to the towing or stability of the van and was really a good move. I did a few more fine tuning mods and they can all be seen in the DVD.

One thing we couldn't make up our mind about was whether to get an annexe or not. We decided not to get one and to just see how things progressed. After 12 months on the road, we're happy without one, so that saved some money and space.

We're extremely happy with our Jayco and after 12 months of being on the road, we can still say we definitely made the right choice.