The First Stop Golden Beach

The day finally arrived and now the excitement level was well above the anxiety I still felt.
I told myself it was the unknown that was causing all the stress.
There was really no reason I could not relax and enjoy the drive up to the sunshine coast.
OK maybe when we arrive at the first caravan park I had booked us in, and everything was set up would be the time to relax and enjoy the start of our new adventure.

 

Golden Beach Holiday Park was our first stay.

A small private caravan park

We were booked there for 17 days.

Don’t ask me why the strange number of days … maybe they had a special I wanted to take advantage of.

As the name implies it was a hop step and jump from the beach.

While it was not a surf beach we were within walking distance of the water.

The managers at the park Scott and Jenna were really friendly and helpful …

Scott even helped me park the van so the stress level was nil.

An amazing transformation after the van was parked and set up … it was total relaxation.

The new lifestyle had begun.

The first few days were perfect great sunshine days and hardly any wind gave us plenty of time to get used to setting up and exploring the region.

The caravan park was a nice size not too big but large enough to have all the comforts one would expect from a park.

My biggest concern is the cleanliness and size of the amenities block.

I need not have worried as they were clean and there were enough to go around.

A pool and camp kitchen was also accessible by the park guests.

Golden Beach is in the Caloundra area which is close to most of the activities on the sunshine coast.

As you can see from the pictures it all changed. We were bombarded by heavy rain and high winds.

Surprisingly the old caravan stood up to the battering no roof leaks etc., however thanks to these few days we realised that if this was going to be home for a while, the accommodation had to change.

Our current 17ft van was not going to be comfortable, roomy, or sturdy enough to sustain a trip around Australia.

And so the hunt began to replace it.

The search began … having stayed in the van for a few days we had a good idea of some of the features we would like to have in a new van.

We started with new vans and soon realised that they cost way more than we were willing to pay.

The second-hand market was not much better but as we needed a new home we started our search.

The quickest way we found to check what was available was the internet.

The next week was spent scanning web pages, for sale adverts, and visiting dealers.

After checking out various vans at different dealerships we decided to buy a 21ft Villa caravan from Green RV on the sunshine coast.

We moved from this a very compact van with not a heck of a lot of spare space.

The van was ok for anyone on a short-term holiday, however a full-time accommodation for a few years .. no way.

As a footnote, we are very happy with our purchase and the service we got from them.

We moved into a 21.5 ft Villa caravan with all modern features and plenty of space.