OMG a lost post…by Harry & Misha featuring Luke. Enjoy!
You’ve all been acquainted with Jeff, our campervan. Ben, Paula and Luke unanimously (and oddly quite quickly and just plain oddly) decided early on to name our rig Jeff. Jeff is a big 6-berth fella (we have room for one more – anyone care to join?).
Jeff has been good to us taking us all over New Zealand, but Jeff needs a little bit of TLC each day or so. Luke has been fascinated by the maintenance of the camper van and has been a big help every day in keeping all the systems up and running. All the systems.
Here are some details on how Jeff stays running properly:
You know you’ve got a serious piece of equipment on your hands when you’re handed a keychain containing no fewer than 9 keys for your new home. There’s a separate key for the engine, storage compartment, water fill cover, propane storage, two for the house door, house safe and of course the Lu-key. It felt good to have this many keys. Powerful. Important. Extremely confusing.
Once you’ve sorted the keys, camper van maintenance is all about removing & filling with the appropriate liquids. And most importantly not getting tanks confused.
The car side of Jeff is pretty easy – just add diesel (and the occasional jump start if you’ve left the headlights on for a few hours accidentally).
The house side of Jeff is where all the fun is. When we’re on the road, we keep a close eye on the house battery charge level (separate from the engine battery). The house battery powers the fridge, house lights, water pump, stove ignition, etc. Luckily, Jeff was a equipped with a solar panel up top and we never ran out of juice.
Once we get to a campsite, Jeff gets plugged into “shore power” to charge the house batteries and power the luxury items like house heat and microwave (which can’t be run off battery).
When we pack up to leave, we give Jeff a little more TLC. Order is important here for hygiene. The fresh water tank gets filled and holds around 100 liters. This water is pumped to the kitchen sink, bathroom sink and the flush. Next we’re on to the “grey water” (which is aptly named). This tank holds water from the sinks and shower. We’ve got a special hose to drain this tank – Hook up the hose. Open the valve. Water goes out and right into the drain. No mess. No fuss.
Then there’s the black water. The name is not accurate. No further description will be provided on that. There’s no hose to hook up. Instead, you remove what can only be described as a carry on roller board suitcase (not sure why you’d want to fly with it except if you’re prone to needing the bathroom the moment the fasten seatbelt sign comes on) and wheel it over to the dump station. Unscrew the cap and turn the 2″ diameter gooseneck outward and pour down the drain. Rinse it out and wheel it back to Jeff for reinsertion. The camper van rental company gives you one pair of disposable gloves for this task and you can always tell the people at the campground who just picked up their camper because they’re the only ones wearing them. However, with considerable practice, one can get to the point of not needing them at all (several extra pairs of gloves would have been much appreciated though).
The Art of Organization
Ugh TMI. Thank you, Harry for that info. With that being said – as you may know, I like to be organized and there’s a certain finesse required to keeping Jeff efficient and comfortable. The interior has little cupboards lining the periphery. They are small but workable. I thought I was a modest packer and now I realize I could have done with half the luggage. Thankfully the cubby underneath the van allows for suitcase storage where we left about half the clothes. Everyone gets their own cubby. Homeschooling, books, and less often used items, like sweatshirts get the long back one. We have space for linens, a drawer for crafts, crayons, etc… and 2 cupboards for food. A little closet holds raincoats, stinky sneakers, dirty laundry and bulk items like paper towels. You would be surprised at how much can fit in this guy, unless of course you have lived on a small boat then you are familiar.
The Art of Entertainment
We’ve spent a lot of time in this guy and logged many km. To pass the time here are some ways we enjoyed the driving experience.
The most obvious activity is gazing at the scenery – wiggly roads, mountains, valleys, rivers, beaches, pretty much any topographical feature you can imagine, and lots of cows and sheep. NZ provides amazing landscape eye candy.
For kids this is enjoyable for shorter periods so we filled those in-between times with other merriment.
Cards, reading, and games were fun but the curvy roads and bumpy van aren’t the best combo for looking down for long periods. Ben seems to be the only one who can handle reading in the car. Friendship bracelets and knitting were satisfying and less nauseating ways to past the time as well.
We listened to many many audiobooks. Here are some favourites:
- Anything by Roald Dahl. His books are great read aloud especially with a British accent.
- Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s important to continually remind them how nice we are compared to the adults in these books.
- The Midnight Gang by David Walliams. A very similar feel to Roald Dahl.
- City of Ember. All 4 books. The kids got really into this post-apocalyptic children’s series and it took us through Australia as well. Harry and I were incredibly relieved when it was over but secretly were super into it. Somehow Ember references find their way into many conversations. ?
- Mrs Frisby & the Rats of NIMH Robert C O’Brien
- The Worst Class Trip Ever and The Worst Night Ever by David Barry (funny for the tween set)
- From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
- Charlotte’s Web (EB White is also a good one for audiobooks)
- My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannet
I have more suggestions if you are ever needing some.
