We fly into Brisbane and are on the right side of Australian Customs racial profiling and go through the green lane. It is straightforward to take the train to the end of the Gold Coast line and within a few minutes Jeff turns up with our Toyota Land Cruiser – as advertised and as promised. By the way, change of ownership which is free in New Zealand, cost us $3000. This is known as a LCT – luxury car tax.

So far, so good. What could go wrong? Quite a few things actually, both large and small.

We have a no drama trip towing the caravan from the sales yard to the Tallebudgera where we plan to spend the first 4 days. It’s only about 10 kms but I manage to give Scott plenty of advice on towing, which I’ve no experience in whatsoever. Actually, it’s more along the lines of: are you ok? how does the car feel? watch out for the traffic light, shouldn’t you brake now? don’t cut the corner. Those of you who know Scott know he is man of almost infinite patience so we arrive still speaking. I’ve watched a video entitled “How to park a caravan without getting a divorce”, so the parking goes well.

Tallebudgera Creek Tourist Park is a beautiful place well situated on Tallebudgera Creek – no surprise there – which is more of a river mouth, and the ocean of Palm Beach. The park isn’t very full but this will change at the weekend when school holidays start.

Having successfully parked, levelled, connected water and power, and organised the grey water disposal, the only thing that remains is getting the awning out and the annex (aka outdoor room) up. We’ve been led to believe erecting the annex is akin to building the pyramids and that it would take as long.

As we’re short a few thousand slaves, we are lucky to meet Dave and Michelle who are parked a few bays further down. “No worries” is Dave’s mantra and he leads us through the pyramid building in short order – where short order is a couple of hours rather than all day. He is also the source of a ladder, a drill, advice about towing and weight distribution hitches and much else. Michelle introduces me to all the useful apps for caravanning, including those for locating the best fuel prices, weather forecasts, and emergency assistance – the last of which we hope never to need. They are a great couple and very generous with their time, providing enormous help to us novices.

Sadly Dave and Michelle won’t be travelling with us to lend tools and a helping hand.

It’s at this point we realise how much other “stuff” we need that we hadn’t anticipated. We extend our stay at Tallebudgera another 3 days and spend our time going to outdoor equipment stores, BBQ outlets, kitchen and storage solutions stores, supermarkets, technology outlets, and I’m fairly sure I do my 10,000 steps every day simply going up and down the aisles of Bunnings.

It’s when I am stashing stuff in cupboards I notice the first hitch – three of the cupboards lack an internal catch – visions of spilled contents. We call New Age to tell them about the oversight, and after some disbelief on their part – they require photographic evidence – Rodney comes and installs the necessary catches while dispensing advice on what he thinks are the best caravan parks. Analysis reveals his preferences – there is a strong correlation with proximity to RSL or Bowling Clubs.

So after a week of getting organised, stocking the caravan and getting into the travelling mindset, we are ready to move on. The first step is to reverse the process of setting up. We take down the annex and pack everything up. Anything loose inside is secured and, as advised, we work through a checklist to make sure we don’t drive off with the power still plugged in or the tow hitch not correctly connected. In fact, our first stop is the tow bar shop to get, as Dave our consultant in all things caravan advises, a weight distribution hitch. This does what it says on the box. It evens the weight distribution across the car by putting more load on the front wheels – handy, as this impacts steering.

So we head off to the tow bar fitter quietly congratulating ourselves on how well we’re doing. Ha Ha. Small hitch. Scott notices the little outside table which folds down from the side of the van and needs to be locked up for travel, is flapping in the breeze. We stop on a bus stop, Bev runs back and unlocks caravan, grabs the keys, locks table in place, locks caravan, runs back to car. We agree if that’s the worst to happen we’ll be doing well.

But worse is to come.

Towing mechanisms in place and $990 later we are on our way but for another small hitch. The fridge has three power sources: it operates off 240 when we are plugged into mains, or shore power as Scott likes to call it, gas when we are parked up with no outside power, and on the alternator of the car when we are driving, so there is constant refrigeration. When we take off driving the fridge isn’t working off the car as it should so we call New Age (again) and they say to call in on our way out of town.

Mark at New Age tests the cabling and we find there’s no connection to the fridge – Jeff had said all the cables were there for caravanning, so we didn’t check. Maybe Jeff doesn’t like cold beer. Ok what do we do? Turns out this needs a couple of hours at the auto electrician. Booked for Wednesday. It’s Monday and we are on our way 100km down the coast. No problem, we can drive back up on Wednesday.

It’s midday and at last we are leaving town and on our way. Or are we? Why isn’t the rear caravan camera working? Mark! Can you have a look please?

Oh dear. A major hitch. When Scott did a tightish U turn in the caravan yard the cables between the car and the caravan got caught in the towing plate. One severed completely, one partially wrecked and one red face. Mark, the workshop guy, is a Kiwi from Maungaraki so gives Scott shit. Lots of it, while reassuring him he isn’t the first and won’t be the last. Fortunately they are great guys and send us away for a couple hours and get Jordan, another Kiwi who is an auto electrician, on to fixing the mess.

We bring back beers to say thanks, cadge another small favour, and at 4.00pm hit the road, having left the caravan park at 10.00am.

We are now at a small place called Skenners Head, near Ballina on the NSW north coast. Scott has been back to the auto electrician and another several hundred dollars later we have, all the required connections and plugs sorted. We hope we’ve run out of setting up costs as they seem endless. I know you don’t feel sorry for us – I wouldn’t either!