Stories of the road…
Small van, big travel
Some road trippers take house-sized caravans. Others take the smallest of vans. We encounteed the latter in the Levin Canyon carpark.
“People doing yoga”, I said to Fi as we drove into the carpark at Levin Canyon. Yes, there they were, a man and a woman over on the lawn in downward dog pose.
We drove to the canyon along a winding, rural Tasmanian road, descending and ascending the curves around Lake Barrington then through bushland and into increasingly sparse-looking farmland as the road steadily ascended.
The circuit walk to the lookouts above the deep and steep Levin Canyon is through forest and down more than 600 steps cut into the slope. It’s only a few kilometers and the walks to the lookouts can be done as shorter out and back tracks, however the circuit held more appeal and we could do with the exercise after a coupke days at the annual Kombi and VW event at the Berry Patch on the coast near Ulverstone.
She must have been somewhere at the end of her twenties, maybe a little more, fit-looking, her skin unblemished, her blonde hair cut at neck length, softly spoken. Her partner, too, had fair hair though a lot longer than hers and tied back in a tail, and was equally fit-looking. We got to talking. They have been in Australia for two years now and hope to return home to London this coming June, though she expressed some uncertainty about that thanks to the pandemic and lack of air travel to the UK.
“Nice car,” I said. “Yes, it’s been good,” she replied.
Their small van carried them around the continent. It was hot in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, the woman told us. Now, here they were on a mild autumn day in Tasmania.
And their car? It was a short wheelbase VW Caddy of some years vintage. The Londoner woman explained that they fitted it out themselves. She opened the rear doors to reveal an unlined, commercial vehicle with barn doors, the type of minivan used to deliver goods. A timber sleeping platform made of pine topped by a thick mattress with storage space below into which folding camp chairs, a pack, a yellow jerrycan of water and their yoga mats were stowed. String lights framed the rear hatch. String bags hung from hooks on the walls. The sleeping platform took up the entirety of the minivan’s cargo space.
So, this was their home on the road that had taken them so far. It would be their home for some time yet.
One of many
That Caddy was one of many vehicles fitted out as home on the road that we have encountered. I recall the little Nissan AWD with the sleeping platform in the rear, much like the Caddy fitout at Levin Canyon, that the couple travel in, the work of two young women who were staying in the free camping area by the bay near St Helens. The same type of car was accommodation for another couple at Mt Field. There was the Holden ute, no canopy, in which a woman slept at the camping area in Melbourne; the small station wagon accommodating a middle aged couple on the NSW South Coast near Port Kembla; the late-middle age man touring on his motorbike; the young Canadian couple bicycle touring on the East Coast towing a surfboard; numerous people travelling in Toyota Coaster vehicles; the lone middle-aged man in his Toyota HiAce at Laurieton; Natheniel in his old VW Kombi at Port Macquarie. All of those who travelled in ordinary sedans and who pitched a small hihers’ tent at night. So many more. Like that young couple at Levin Canyon, they all have their stories and most are happy to share them.
The couple’s little short wheelbase Caddy, I’ve seen only one other in Tasmania, others than our long wheelbase model, fitted out for travel. That was on the Bass Strait coast, Ulverstone, and it had the same KombiLife VanEssa kitchen box/sleeping platform that ours has.
Travel small, travel far
One of the guys who fitted out our own minivan in Campbelltown NSW also has a short wheelbase Caddy, one of the diesel models. He has a bunk for one in it and storage below. Both of these vans are the smallest vehicles we have sen that are fitted out for travel and camping. Goes to show you can go far in small vehicles if you are a minimalist.
Those travellers at Levin canyon, they have gone far with little. Theirs is a life of minimalism of possessions, for sure, but one of places and experiences that are more valuable than mere stuff.
