Take two

Well that was fast!

Today we went to the Adelaide Let’s Go Caravan and Camping Show. Our initial intention was to simply look at all the extra bits and pieces you need when you own a caravan… hoses, cables, wheel chocks, levelling devices, etc… but something different happened…

We bought (another) caravan!

Before going any further, I want to apologise to our friend John Driggers. We met up with him at the show, as planned, but effectively abandoned him as we spent all our time sorting our own needs. I hope he found something to interest him during his visit.

Reviewing previous contenders

Given the confirmation that Kokoda has gone into receivership, Megan and I thought we should revisit some of the other makes and models that had figured in our initial deliberations. We are thinking that should we proceed with the Admiral purchase through the manufacturer, the warranty situation is simply unclear. No doubt it would ultimately reside with the manufacturer, but with the dealer, Adelaide City Caravans, dealing exclusively in Kokoda caravans, it may not survive this process, leaving us with having to deal with the manufacturer directly. Even the manufacturer may be affected by the Kokoda restructure. We have no clue how much money they may be owed. There is simply too much we don’t know and can’t know.

So instead of checking out those bits and pieces, we went back to see the few other vans that had made our original short list.

Nova

First cab off the rank was Nova Caravans, and their Vita 216-9R with it’s rear club, centre bathroom layout. It’s asking price in the very high $80k region was simply too much for us. I don’t remember that being the case last time we looked.

However, they then showed us a custom version of their Family Escape. They had built a slightly shorter version of their 236-8C layout where the two rear bunks had been replaced by a single bedroom. Their concept was that we could remove the bed and put in a desk. Interesting. We spent quite some time with them nutting out the possible details, and being fed and watered (thanks to their sales team for that). They of course pressured us to move forward, but we never quite felt right about it, even though the layout was a good one. However, it certainly gave us some food for thought.

Hitch Hika

Next we went to revisit Hitch Hika. Here we once again looked at their rear club lounge layout, but just weren’t “feeling it” like we did the first time around, and so left pretty quickly.

Crusader

Excalibur Prince

Our next stop was the Cameron Caravans display and their range of Crusader Caravans, in particular the Excalibur Prince. Again, this is a rear club lounge, centre bathroom layout like the Kokoda Admiral.

We very much liked these vans the first time around. In many ways they were our first choice, but we were swayed to the Kokoda by its amazing online community.

The Crusaders are built somewhat differently to most other (affordable?) Australian made caravans. They use a 42 mm composite floor comprised of a lower layer of fibreglass and an upper layer of plywood with a 30 mm layer of high density expanded polystyrene foam insulation sandwiched between. Most caravans are still being built on a single 12 mm layer of ply. In addition, the roof panel is a single 30 mm thick piece from the front checker plate to the rear checker plate, meaning no joins and a much lower chance of leaks developing. This panel is constructed from another polystyrene foam sandwich, this time with both upper and lower layers being fibreglass.

Excalibur Kingsman

While sitting in the Prince and ruminating over the price, I spied a model I had not previously seen, the Excalibur Kingsman.

This model does not have the large rear club lounge or centre bathroom, but it has a side club that is quite long, and consequently has a table large enough for us to sit at with our computers back-to-back, and the lounge is also more than long enough to become a part-time bed for the occasional additional traveller. However, unlike most modern caravans of this layout it does still have a bedroom that is separated from the main living area by a sliding door, and this is one large bedroom (for a caravan). The bathroom in this van is at the rear. The shower, like the bedroom, is enormous, and there is an unbelievable amount of storage. The bedroom has a chest of drawers below the TV on the wall behind the club lounge… crikey!

Some other features we like about the Excalibur range is that the microwave is now placed immediately below the bench top. Most vans place it above the fridge or in the upper cabinets. We feel this is too high and not really safe. With this layout there is no need to remove the regular oven to make space for a microwave. Also, the front toolbox comes with a slide specifically designed to hold a Baby WeberQ, which we already own. And did we mention the large bedroom?

Anyway… long story short, we put down a deposit on a Kingsman, for delivery in early July.