This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. At the start of the week, there was excitement because we should have been picking up our bus today (Friday), except we’re not. Instead it will be Tuesday 15th September. Today we’re ok with that but Monday we weren’t – it was a horrid day.
But, as with any rollercoaster, we’re on another loop but we’re nearing the exhilarating end.
Before I share our bus conversion walkthrough for this week, I want to do a massive shout out to the guys who took over converting the bus for us – R & R Bus and Leisure Hire. To be brutally honest, they took over nothing short of a mess, because the work completed by Brett Maxwell Smith of Stargazer RV Conversions or Stargazer Motorhome Conversions needed to be basically ripped out and started from scratch. Worse than that, there were structural issues with the work Brett had done, which not only cost us lots of extra money, but have meant the guys at R & R have had to be super creative at finding work arounds for us. I’ll leave it at that, suffice to say, do not get any work done by Brett Maxwell Smith. Ever. Spread the word.
This weeks build tasks
There are so many things we have learnt since started to convert this bus to a motorhome. And now we’re at the pointy end of the conversion, it’s like we learn something new everyday. We now know, that before we can actually take ownership of the motorhome, it needs sign off by an electrical engineer, a structural engineer, a mechanic and it needs to be taken over a weigh bridge. To get it registered, we need a blue slip, a brown slip, and a green slip, and because it has been out of registration, we will need to get the RMS to do an inspection too.
Monday
Our worst fears from last week’s Australia Tour Update came true on Monday. We got the call to say the bus wouldn’t be ready on Friday, it would be ready on Tuesday – as long as the engineer signs it off on Friday (this will give us our blue slip for registration), and the mechanics authorise it on Tuesday (this will be our brown slip for registration).
On a positive note, our main man Anthony from R&R spent several hours with the electrical engineer to get the electrical sign off. Tick one!
Wednesday/Thursday
We visit the bus and it’s crazy. No time for chatting, the guys are on a mission to have the bus ready for the engineer sign off on Friday. We’re are not going to get in their way. We snap some quick photos to show you, and then we are out of there to leave them be.
Our windows have been reinstalled, we have a new dashboard, the driver’s seat is in, my passenger seat is being worked on, the dining and lounge chairs are almost done, our fridge is installed, the freezer and washing machine are installed in the outside bins, all the cabinets for the inside have been cut and are in the process of being assembled. The shower screen has finally arrived but needs to be installed before the rest of the bathroom can be finished. And the laminate for the bench tops hasn’t arrived. There’s still lots of work to do, but we remain optimistic. Tuesday is our day!
Friday
Today marks a huge day in this 14 month conversion of our bus to our motorhome, office, school for our kids, and mobile billboard for our mission to Transform Children’s Health, One Lunchbox At A Time.
Today, Rob the owner of R&R will be taking our big green gal for a drive to Newcastle (about 1 hour) to get the final engineer signoff. This is huge because the bus hasn’t been driven (other than small shuffles around the workshop) for 14 months – we hope she still goes. Then there’s the engineer signoff. Positive thinking that we’ll receive the call late this afternoon saying she’s got her blue slip.
Then it’s back to the workshop to get cracking on the rest of the work to be done.
For us back here at my mum’s, we’ve been scoping out the streets looking for low lying tree branches and electrical wires. We’ve mapped out our safe path to bring the bus (she’s about 11mtrs long, and 4 mtrs high) to mum’s then to get her out with the trailer attached (she’ll then be almost 19 mtrs long).
And we’re reacquainting ourselves with our belongings. We’ve pulled all our boxes (our life, much of which we haven’t seen for 6 months) out of the trailer and we’re grouping them into the ‘rooms’ or areas of the bus – bathroom, laundry, bedrooms etc. This will hopefully make it easier to pack the bus. As we’re doing this, it’s becoming obvious that we still have kept too much stuff, especially for the kitchen. I can feel another declutter coming on.
This weekend
We have to wash the trailer because we need to get it to our fantastic National Partner Scott Sign on Monday in preparation for sign writing next week.
I’ll be a domestic goddess and whip up some curtains for the kids ‘bedroom’ so they can control the light that comes into their room. It will also mean that Israel and I will be able to work and play up the front of the bus without our lights at the front keeping the kids awake at night.
And we will be crossing all possible body parts that our big green gal will be ready for us to pick up on Tuesday. Please cross everything for us too.
Next Week
We will share with your our Australian Tour locations and dates for October, November and December. Keep an eye out, and if we’re coming to your town, or close to it, we’d love to see you there. We also have something else really exciting to share.
And of course, we will be sharing our bus (the power of positive thinking).