After quite a few questions of late on exactly how on earth we've squeezed our life into what is essentially the size of a large lounge room rug - I thought I would shed a bit of light on what i've been referring to as "living in mini".
Van Morrison is, on the spec sheet - 4.87 metres long and 2.13m wide. By comparison, and there's alot of that going on at caravan parks, it's pretty small.
Not uber small - but not like the full on contraptions of the modern day vans. I don't think they even make our brand of caravan anymore. It's a Millard, and the year it was released, it was Caravan of the Year.
Now it just looks like a piece of old tin amongst all the reinfocred plastic/ metal fabulousness of the Jayco's and Coroma's.
The interior shows his age a little, but everything that is meant to work is working.
What we do have:
1. Lots of power points - so we can charge all of our gadgets, boil the kettle, make toast or blow-dry my hair.
The power also connects us to refregeration and the fridge is pretty much the only thing that is quite obviously designed for hobbits.
2. Hooked up to the gas cylinders - there's an oven, grill and 4-burner stove top. Using this to cook also heats up the van on cold nights. Win.
3. A sink and a tap. Well it's not exactly a tap, it's more of an outlet that you have to pump to bring the cold water up the pipe.
4. Storage - this is where caravans come into their own. There's lots of places to put pots, food and supplies and then if you lift up the couch seats - there's extra storage underneath. They've all got special little catch locks so they don't open when we're moving.
5. Two wardrobes and some drawers. We're not living out suitcases.
6. A roof that pops up - so you can stand up straight (this has been tested by Doni, my tallest friend) and it also lets lots of air in the window flaps, which is good when it's hot.
7. A table that's bolted to the floor - an L-shaped couch surrounding the table.
8. A normal, comfy double bed at one end and a couch that converts into bunk beds at the other end.
9. Flyscreens and a screen-door. Essential.
10. We also have an annex - that stripey canvas contraption that you see attached to a caravan when they're parked. We've not attemped to put ours up yet, it's got a truck load of ropes and pegs and zero instructions. We'll get to that when we have a nice sunny day, some spare time and a good amount of watching grey nomads who won't be able to stop themselves in offering to help us.
What we don't have:
1.There's no microwave - and so far we've not missed it. Because we're living out of a bar sized fridge - there's not really enough room to store leftovers to reheat or additional frozen things to defrost. This of course makes grocery shopping more frequent.
2. No TV. This was an active decision we made cause we're pretty sure that we'll be technologically occupied enough with our laptop, phone, ipod dock and digital radio. If we get desperate to watch TV, we'll go to the pub.
3.We don't have a toilet or shower. This means schlepping it in the dark to amenities blocks in the middle of the night (no matter the temperature or weather) and showering in flip flops.
4. A washing machine - something I only found out yesterday exist in some caravans.
5. Air conditioning. But we do have a portable fan and heater with us to plug on in when we're desperate.
It takes us about 15 minutes to pack it up and attach is to the car for bump out and about 10 minutes to take it off the car and set it up for bump in (not including any reverse parking - that can take from 5 minutes to a half hour depending on how sadistic the caravan park owner is when they allocate you a site).
So living in mini isn't really like camping at all.
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