Well we picked up the new Discovery on Friday.
Its been a long wait considering the van was built in July she has sat comfortably at the dealers storage yard for a fair few months. Thanks to Jayco Sydney for storing it for us until we where ready a great dealership with friendly people.
So Friday we took the kids and headed of to Jayco Sydney after the notorieties where done we did a very brief walk through (done it to many times to care now
), hitched up and headed home.
The van is absolutely outstanding in layout, I honestly cannot believe more people with families don't snap these vans up.
I was talking to the dealer and he said he had a demo for a month or two and no one was interested.
So what do we love about the van -
1) Storage, as @
MrsExpanda put it the van is the gift that keeps on giving as we just keep finding more and more storage its quite astounding how many places there is to put stuff. In the 17.56.2 and 16.49.2 the van was literally bursting at the seems and even overnighters at rest stops where a challenge as things where often all over the floor as we had run out of room. In the Discovery 17.55.5 SH everything and I mean everything has a place for it to go and the van would otherwise appear empty. This is for us the number one best part of the van and I am still able to store stuff away even thought we have everything with us.
2) The layout, its fantastic and alot larger than I what I had expected. We have a dividing curtain that separates us from the kiddies and there bunks are converted into the lounge each morning so you would be forgiven for thinking they slept outside. The shower / toilet is easily accessible and has enough room. We can have the kids sitting at the table and us both cooking without any dramas. But the seperation of beds / cooking etc is very well thought out.
3) The bench tops seem to be higher than the expanda as I don't get a sore back washing dishes / cooking
So that is just a few things we are loving about the van I am sure @
MrsExpanda will come along and add her two cents.
Shake Down Trip Report
Know onto the shakedown trip, we are not one to do things by halves
so directly after picking up the van we headed home and stuffed the van with all our goodies (kids included) and the same day 3pm headed of for sunny QLD for a bit R&R but we where going to do it over a few days like follows -
Sydney > Coopernook State Forest > Darlington Beach > Lismore > Tweed Heads
All went well we collected the van @ 11am, the van was packed by 3pm and we hit the road by 3.30 pm and arrived at Coopernook at 8.30 at night.
A fire was on order so within a few minutes we had this
Coopernook is a lovely little state park just of the highway only about 5 km's dirt road in and is completely free and complete with pallets for burning
. There where a few campers here and everyone was very friendly!
This was the next morning hitched up ready to go -
So we headed off to Darlington to beach, absolutely love this van park the sites are all angled vs straight so you get much more room per site. There is roos everywhere, the beach is fairly close and it feels like you are deep in a forest somewhere due to the amount of tree growth. The pool was a hit with the kids as well having a water slide but it is a little small. There is also a BMX track which the kids will be coming back for and the best part of it was there is a car washing bay to remove the countless bugs we had on the car
!! -
So next day we headed off to Lismore for the Lismore markets and after traversing the Summerland way and a few goat tracks we arrived at Lismore to find out the markets are not on today.... Apparently they are every 1st and 3rd sunday each month except in December where it is only the 1st Sunday in December not the 3rd great
so we decided we would head up to the tweed a little early but really had no choice.
Know this is where things get interesting
as we where heading up banagalow road if you know it its a goat track in some places and the car was not happy. Surging from 2400 - 2700 RPM and loosing power I was getting concerned so pulled over and got onto the NRMA. Luckily we had the van as it was blistering hot so we escaped to the safety of the van for a game of dominos and a cold drink whilst we waited for the patrol man.
He took one look at the car and said "Hmm, high pressure diesel and your a premium member Ill get you a tow truck
" know this is the best bit and for all you travellers out there we had premium care NRMA so as we are more than 100k's from home we get a range of benefits which included a tow to our destination for the van and car as well as us. The patrolman ordered the dual cab hino and within two hours we where back on the road again but just a little different towing configuration.
Waiting, Waiting, Waiting patiently for Mr Patrolman...
So the truck arrives (P.s I like big trucks so lots of pics will ensue)....
First the pathy gets a ride -
But wait what about the Disco it looks lonely back there??
No worries we can hook her on to!!!
I gotta get me one of these Hinos I am bypassing a BT-50 for one of these next they are an absolute tank!!!
Ohhh and by the way we where in Clunes so @
MrsExpanda took the time for some happy snaps....
So the nice tow truck driver dropped the car and van in the caravan park on our site and the NRMA considering it was Sunday would tow the car to our preferred repairer on Monday morning to get the car looked at.
So we are now in Tweed Heads and car is being repaired so we can get up the highway to visit some members and take the kids to the theme parks for some vomit inducing fun.
A special thanks to @
chartrock for the phone calls and offer of help much appreciated mate its good to know there are such lovely people out there so kudos to you and MrsChartrock for such a kind offer and jumping on the horn. Kudos to you!!!!
And thanks to everyone else who offered help and advice much appreciated!!!
Will post some more pictures later of the interior once we get a bit more settled but its still much the same as before
!!!
