Well, we did it! We’ve got our bus! It’s taken a while for me to write this update, since so much has happened in the two weeks since I drove her home to Wollongong, so I wanted to give you a bit of a rundown of the week – picking up where we left off.
Sunday 4th October
We woke up early – despite getting to bed at nearly 2am – and felt more excited than tired. We went straight out to our bus, and took a good look in daylight hours. The first, most obvious thing we noticed was how dirty she was inside. Glue, pencil marks, sawdust, shavings, bits of nails and screws, all littered the floor and every other flat surface internally. Outside, she needed a bit of a scrub and clean down, but there was a LOT of interior cleaning before we could make a start on packing her.
I vacuumed like a mad man, trying to get as much of the gunk out as possible. Bel went to work with a dishcloth and a bottle of eucalyptus oil, to clean off all the glue residue and filthy marks everywhere throughout the bus. The next few days would feel a little like Groundhog Day, as we cleaned up, cleaned some more, installed stuff, did more cleaning, and so on. But for now, we were still buzzing with excitement – we had our baby in our possession and in our control!
Monday 5th October
It was a public holiday in Australia – the “October Long Weekend” – so there was slightly shorter shop opening hours, and plenty of people at Bunnings when I went in to buy some supplies. This was the first of many trips this week – the ladies on the door and at the checkouts were beginning to recognise me each time I went in!
Bel carried on with the cleaning, and I started working on finishing off some jobs that weren’t done yet – installing handles and catches on the kitchen drawers, installing some of the roller blinds that hadn’t been put up yet, putting a handle on the inside of our front door for easier closing, and so on.
It was amazing – and HOT – weather, with 32°C Sunday, 35°C Monday and another forecast for over 30°C again on Tuesday. We probably lost a bit of weight from sweating our butts off – literally – and it made working on the bus a little more challenging than normal. The heat also had a few unexpected impacts on our flooring:
Tuesday 6th October
Like I said, Groundhog Day. More cleaning, more finishing off little things within the bus. There were a few interesting developments today: I filled up the water tanks to the brim – and discovered a couple of leaks! – and also tested out plugging into the grid with a new 15A power cord, to test out our electricity system within the bus.
Also, today, I finished installing the shelving and racks in our bus, so we could hang surfboards from the roof, load long skinny stuff along the floor (which would sit snugly under the car in transit) and get the trailer as packed as possible. I had a bit of a moment today, where I realised that it was really real – and we were going to be heading off in our dream machine soon. Here’s a progress shot of the trailer interior, once it was partly packed. (Yes, I had to put MORE stuff in there…)
Wednesday 7th October
This was a big night – we started packing our clothes, put our mattresses in, and finally, after much hype and excitement from all of us, we were able to sleep in the bus. Our first night in our new home! The kids were ecstatic, as were we. It felt so good to be on our own mattresses again, and it felt amazing to be sleeping in our own home. Bel and I kept working – packing, installing, clearing out Bev’s place, and getting things into the bus – and finally collapsed in bed at stupid-o-clock.
Thursday 8th October
Today started early, with a shriek from Belinda as we were getting breakfast – “Jamie Oliver liked The Root Cause on Facebook!!” And, sure enough:
What a way to start the day! We had such a spring in our steps from this, and this little bit of attention was the culmination of our dreams and aspirations of the past twelve months. There was another day today was going to be great – Rob and Anthony from R&R Bus & Leisure Hire were heading down to finish off the main unfinished bits of the bus, so we could set off and have our launch on Saturday. Rob drove down the night before and slept in his own motorhome at the boat ramp carpark, and Anthony drove his huge van full of tools and materials that morning. Bev was amazingly gracious as her driveway was turned into a mobile workshop.
The two guys worked like machines from about 8am to 7pm, getting through a fair slab of work and finishing our tables, our wardrobe shelves, door handles and latches, and a few other small odds and ends. We would need to get another two or three days’ worth of work done at a later stage, but at least now we could functionally live in the bus, and certainly could have our launch party on Saturday with a complete-ish bus. The boys left around 8pm after a quick dinner – cooked by Bev, of course – and we kept packing the bus until our brains faded and we simply couldn’t get any more done.
Friday 9th October
The big day. Big for a few reasons. It was our 11th wedding anniversary, and we were completely unprepared for it, having only remembered the night before at about 9pm. In a rush that morning, I looked up “traditional 11th wedding anniversary gifts” in Google, and HILARIOUSLY… it was Steel. Yep. Our bus, our trailer, all the modifications, all the internal framing, it was all built out of steel, and it just happened to be the traditional 11th wedding anniversary gift! We couldn’t believe it, and laughed with each other for about five or ten minutes.
Today was big for another reason: we had SOOO much still to pack, we had a car to load into our trailer, a trailer to hitch onto our bus, and a mountain to conquer in the bus and trailer combo. We HAD to leave Wollongong today. What’s more, we had a date with a signwriter and also a Channel 7 cameraman later in the day which HAD to be kept.
I woke around 5am, Bel was up shortly after, and we both powered through a ridiculous amount of work. I cleared out the last bits of Bev’s garage. Up until this morning, it had been our storage area, and was looking a bit like this:
You can imagine my terror.
I tackled attaching the trailer and loading the car first, figuring that I would have to store a bit of excess stuff inside the back of the car. I hitched the trailer up to the bus, then drove the car into her. I ratchet-strapped each wheel/axle down onto the lashing points, and had a look at how level everything was. I was pretty satisfied, so I started loading up the back of the car, and eventually – eventually – the car and trailer were packed, and Bev’s garage was empty.
Meanwhile, Bel was packing the last of the kids stuff, games, toys, office gear, computers, clothes, kitchenware, pantry, food, fridge, and everything else into the inside of the bus. Having shelves was a bit of a revelation, as it meant we could finally pack all our pantry items into the kitchen properly, and having our fridge and freezer running meant that we could move all our perishable food items in without risking them.
AT LONG LAST, at around 11am, we were ready to depart Bev’s place, depart Wollongong, and ultimately, depart on the first leg of our Australian Tour.
Like, seriously. This was the big moment we had been anxiously awaiting for MONTHS. It was quite surreal, to be perfectly honest, and the feeling became quite overwhelming. I lost track of Bel for a while, until I realised that she had gone inside to chat with her mum, and the two of them were probably sobbing in each others arms.
Bev took this photo of us outside our pride and joy, just before we drove off:
Bel stayed out of the bus as I drove off, so she could shoot this video clip of me driving our baby off down the road for the very first time, all rigged up. Nothing like a trial by fire! I had NEVER driven her this fully-loaded before, and I had never towed a 3-tonne, car-carrying trailer behind her either… Fortunately the video is far enough away that you don’t see my tense, stressed face!
And there we were – driving out of Wollongong, navigating the corners and making our way up Mount Ousley towards Sydney.
Our 19-metre, 18-tonne rig reached the BLAZING top-speed of 15 kilometres per hour up the hill (!) and sat comfortably around 85 km/h on the flat. We had a few hairy moments on the downhills, and we actually got the fright of our lives when our heavier drawers flew out around some of the long, sweeping bends on the freeway.
In any case, we safely reached our destination – Chifley Public School – in time for our signwriter. Scott and Abby from Scott Sign – our National Partner who donated ALL of our exterior signage on the bus and trailer – had to update one of our other sponsors’ logos.
They finished their work just in time for the cameraman Phil from Channel 7 to come and film a pre-roll for Sunrise, and we got ourselves settled in with a BBQ dinner to wrap up a HUGE day, and a HUGE week.
Early to bed, because tomorrow was the launch event!