Christmas comes in many shapes and sizes for different people and this may be one of the last Christmases I spend with family in a while, who knows where I’ll be in twelve months time, I could be on the other side of the country. So this is Christmas in a 100 year old house that’s been set up as a museum called Wynella. (that’s a whole different story you can read about here)
Christmas Lunch at Wynella
I figured I should post some images and explanations of the bus from the inside to give you an idea of what it’s like to live inside it on a day to day basis. Although comfortable and with most luxuries you might ever want, you must understand that everything is small, you have everything you could need, but generally it’s miniaturised. For example the seats in the main living area at the table has seating for four people, and seat belts for four as well, but compare the seats to my hat hanging on the back wall. And no, it’s not a sombrero.
The main living area
Camped up in the bush
First stop on on my travels is Denmark, W.A., about 450km south of Perth. The trip down was long compared with driving a car, but reasonably trouble free. Part of the reason it took a while was because I needed to stop at a black water dump point. Pinjarra has a CMCA sponsored dump point in town opposite the local pub, they also have an area near the dump point where you can camp overnight, worth stopping if you’re going passed as there’s a huge grassed area with lots of shady trees.
Yep, the subject that many people don’t really like to talk about, the toilet. Now unless you’re going to spend your life going from caravan park to caravan park, you’ll probably need some form of toilet. OK, there are going to be plenty of people on here probably message me saying, but I haven’t had a toilet for years and I’ve got by. But for those days when it’s pouring with rain and you are miles from a toilet, or when you ate some food that hasn’t agreed with you and you really need to get to a toilet in a hurry? You’ll be glad that you have a toilet. Here’s mine.
To anyone who has done it, I salute you, it’s not an easy thing to do. But like all things in life which often seem insurmountable at the time, once we work through them and out the other side we often look back in hindsight and find that they weren’t so hard or so bad after all, and certainly not so scary. It’s just fear of the unknown.
What am I talking about? The decision to turn your life upside down, to uproot yourself, declutter your life and hit the road with all of your possessions.
So long term plans were that I wanted to head to Tasmania to have a look around. Tasmania, the land of beautiful forests and waterways, cheap property and “old school” values and sense of community. Also notably I guess more recently, voted the top bogan state in Australia.
She was a good looking coaster bus, in a rugged sort of way.
After much searching around for vehicles I decided to go for Tru Blue a 1993 long wheel base Toyota coaster lovingly set up by an elderly couple who had owned her for about 10 years. One of the main aspect that attracted me to this vehicle was the quality of fit-out and the solar set up.
