Today should have been the first day on the road of our Big Lap of Australia. We have spent over a year planning the trip making notes of places to visit (and some to avoid), buying and gathering the things we needed for our caravan and a couple of ‘essentials’ – a coffee machine and a DVD/disk recorder to catch-up on over 80-episodes of the UK TV series ‘Heart Beat’ that we’ve been building up for over a year.

Hold everything

Well it just wasn’t to be. For some unknown reason the caravan’s battery decided to fail just as we got the van home from storage and no amount of charging would resuscitate it. Of more concern, and the reason that the failed battery was a serious concern, Jayco no longer fit an independent battery for the the caravan’s electric brakes. Now the house battery provides the backup source of power. The battery was covered under warranty but we didn’t have the time to go to Jayco to have it tested or replaced before we needed to head off. So it was off to the local Battery World for a replacement – two actually. We were under the impression when we bought the van that it had two batteries installed but only one had been fitted and that wasn’t enough for what we anticipated we were going to need. We should be thankful, though, that we were at home when the battery failed and that was only after the battery monitor alerted the fact to us.

And so here we are having lost two days packing and loading and now having to delay the start of our trip until tomorrow..

For anyone contemplating a Big Lap or even an extended road trip, this is probably the most stressful few days you’ll have preparing you car and caravan for the road.