It’s like moving away from home for the first time – you have nothing, except maybe some sheets and towels your Mum gives you. Except we don’t have Mums. But we do have sheets and towels – more than we need here, so let’s take some with us.

With 5 days (5 days!) to go before we embark on our caravan adventure we have lists:

• what to take for inside
• what to take for outside
• what we need to buy for inside and outside – and this list is very, very long
• what we need to set up a kitchen
• basic pantry – thanks Annabel Langbein for your essential holiday list but I don’t think the caravan is big enough
• emergency stuff – everything in Australia, from the climate to the flora and fauna, wants to kill you
• oh yes, paying for, registering, and insuring said car and caravan.

Everything needs to be lightweight. The caravan tare (I’m still not sure if that’s pronounced tear or tarry) is 2,700kg and has a fully loaded capacity of 3,500kg. With water tanks carrying 240kg that leaves 560kg for everything else. Sounds like a lot, but think of the weight of the annex, a couple of outdoor chairs and a table, 2 x 35kg gas bottles, bikes (yes we will get bikes), not to mention food, crockery and cutlery, pots and pans, BBQ, linen, clothes, shoes and so on and so on and so on……..I got a migraine reading about caravan tare, vehicle tare, ATM, GVM, TBM and many, many more acronyms I am sure I’ll be tossing around like tennis balls before I’m much older.

Some things aren’t so important for these first weeks of learning to caravan, though I suspect things about towing are important, as we won’t be too far from civilisation. However, come May when we head off into the wilderness we want to be sure we have what we need for day-to-day and emergencies.

The current plan is this: fly to Brisbane on the 30th March 2019 and get the train to Burleigh Heads on the southern Gold Coast to collect the Toyota Land Cruiser VX. We send many tens of thousands of dollars to someone who is, I’m sure, a very trustworthy fellow – he will meet us at the train – or not.

Assuming he has gone to South America with our money, and is at the station to meet us, we’ll drive to the caravan sales yard and check out our baby – the New Age 19LE Manta Ray. When we ordered it back in January we also asked for a grey water tank to be fitted, also bike racks and a front tool box. Assuming all is in order, we will go to stay somewhere and reflect on the magnitude of what we have done. There may be hysteria – there will be drinking.

On April Fools’ Day, which I hope isn’t an omen, we pick up the caravan. There’s a half day orientation to its features. A half day. Clearly caravans are as complicated as VCRs once were. Will we need a teenager to explain things to us?