Best laid schemes ..

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

(from a Robbie Burns poem)

It was, I naívely thought, going to be relatively simple. Begin with a fixed sum of money .. allocate priorities, assign a budget and time-frame for acquisition to each .. and then, after a few months - become more or less independent again.

The "scheme", some months ago, was to dig up a small "nest-egg" that had been parked, almost forgotten, in an account that had been created some 20 years ago; get the car fixed, buy a caravan and a few "wants", shuck off the tedium of daily grind then set off on further adventures - footloose and fancy free.

Not, it seems, quite so easy these days.

The first priority was to get the motor vehicle to a state where i could be confident that it wouldn't fall apart in the middle of nowhere. There was a leak in the power steering, and the quote had been in the region of $600 to fix. So, some weeks ago, duly booked the "wagon" in for service, dropped it off at 7.30am, thinking mmm, should be somewhere around $1500 budget allocation, and caught the bus into the city for the day. Called into the workshop at 4.30pm on the way home .. to find pretty much the entire front end of the vehicle spread all over the workshop floor. ?? think I. "Whaaa..?", say i, pointing. "Ah," the mechanic replies, "you know that small "knock" you reported was coming from near the front left wheel .." "Yeeesss .. " say i. "Well, the front shock absorber had shattered, and it's a wonder that the front wheel hasn't fallen off already." "Oh", mumble me. "Well," says the mech, "You did say 'fix everything', and get it 'highway ready', you'll have to come back tomorrow".

Duly returned the following day .. to be presented with an operational motor vehicle, and a bill for $2500. Cést la vie.


Similar story with the caravan. Had allocated a maximum $5000 from a very limited budget and spent several weekends searching the internet and driving all over the city looking for one. There is a very large "caravan yard" about 20K away over on the North side of town, with Vans ranging from $1500 to $250,000 (who the hell would spend $250K on a caravan?, I'd rather buy a house). The ones that interested me were in the $3500 - $4500 range, but very old and somewhat tacky, requiring considerable time to "renovate" .. buuut, would have been copable.

Then, on another of my almost endless searches of the internet, noticed one that was just a couple of K away at Dario Caravans in the next suburb .. bit higher priced than intended, but decided to have a quick squizz anyway. Hoo boy. Took one look at the outside, a brief look at the inside and, well .. fell in love with it.

The asking price ($6,950) was somewhat higher than my "budget allocation", buuut, a bittuva discussion, I offered $6,100 and we settled at $6,400.

Have to admit that, for its age (1985), the van is immaculate, and everything that I was looking for. Who needs fancy double beds and gadget filled kitchens? All I needed was a bunk, a stove and lots of storage .. heh.

There was, of course, a small problem - it has electric brakes, necessitating the installation of the Brake controller in the wagon .. price $350, which sort of put the purchase price back up to $6,750 ..

On the other hand, I have enormous praise for Dario Caravans, and Chris in particular. After I'd agreed to purchase and paid the deposit, Chris said "Leave it here for 'after sales' service". Well, one week later, when i went to pick it up, found that -
A. there was a new fire extinguisher,
B. the annexe had been replaced with a brand new one,
C. the gas bottle had been replaced with a new one,
D. the 3 way fridge had been pulled apart and fully reconditioned.

"Errrmmm.." say I, "how much will all THIS cost?"
"No problem", says Chris, "All part of the after sales service".

So, for excellent service regarding ANYTHING to do with caravans AND ACCESSORIES, will thoroughly recommend

DARIO CARAVANS,
Pinn St. St MARYS,
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

So far so good - there were a few problems trying to find a place to "park" it ..
had arranged that with one of my customers who had a back gate and spare section of backyard .. buut, she turned out to be a batty old dear who changed her mind the night before I was due to collect the van, so had to frantically ring around some other customers, and eventually found another who had an empty house with an accessible driveway .. and that is where it sits, for the time being, until I can find the time to add some wiring to make it more-or-less "independent" (have a solar panel, deep cycle battery and 600Watt inverter to go into it yet) - then transfer all the belongings that am intending to keep (or as much as will fit .. heh.)

Actually, the unpredicted "calls" on the budget have been considerable, so quite a lot of what I had "dreamed" of, intended to achieve, has been severely curtailed - and the time-frame extended.

[at this stage am thinking that I should have stuck with the "original", more "romantic" - somewhat more "fanciful" - idea of a Clydesdale (or Percheron), a brightly coloured box on four wheels and a trusty Blue Heeler to trot alongside .. but that idea seems to have been lost, somewhere .. the notion of "comfort", and the intertwined tendrils and tentacles of technology seem to be difficult to discard, these days ..perhaps in the "next life" .. heh.]


Have to admit to a certain amount of "fear of the unknown" at the moment, which is odd .. must be getting old. There was a time when would just "forge ahead" and trust to fate, the future, fairies, the gods, my own ingenuity, or whatever - to look after me and keep me from serious disaster ..

Buut, so far everything seems to be working out well ( if somewhat more expensive than hoped for) - so the story continues ..