Getting a van wasn’t really in our plans. It was a fun thing that Ryan and I would talk about, as in “how cool would it be to travel around America in a van” or “that van looks sick imagine having one of those”. But as fate would have it, on a trip out to the beach with our brilliant friends Moe and Henry, van life rapidly turned from a distant daydream to a proper lets have a yarn about prospect.

See, Moe and Henry were thinking about selling up before moving over to the east coast, and due to the lack of concrete plans for our next year, we had our attention captured. Both Ryan and I used our over-excitable minds (and too many van-life instagrams) to start planning what the following year could look like if we brought it from them. The quick conversation in the car soon became a bit more serious and a couple of weeks later, Mich Mouse was parked in our driveway with the keys in our hands.

We brought her empty, Moe had taken all of her set-up out leaving a blank canvas for us (mainly Ryan) to start imagining what we could do to make her our own home. We spent hours choosing which features we would like, assessing different styles and builds to find what would work for us and or space. Before long, the first Bunnings trip commenced. Having Ryan as a builder by trade definitely made the experience smoother and less stressful, and we had the perfect space to set up operations courtesy of V and Philby. We spent many hours in that shed; measuring, painting, screwing, sanding, wiring, swearing and having beer breaks.

We also got the pleasure of some hands on helpers, with our best buddy Angus spending almost a week helping us day in and day out to aid with some of our most complicated tasks. Another (ridiculously) frequent visitor was our best buddy Britney, she was more of a passionate onlooker who brought a bottle or two of wine and was always enough of a distraction to get Ryan to shut shop for the day so we could yarn instead. Ryan notes that she probably would’ve added an extra week to our build, but I don’t reckon we could have done it without her. Stumpy also made his appearances from time to time, and much the same as Angus and Britney, having him around made the mundane tasks a lot more bearable. And to Evie, the upholstery wizard who was my biggest aid in making both the mattress pieces and the curtains, thank you for ignoring my mental breakdowns and chatting shit with me while we tried to figure out what we were going to do, you’re a legend and I appreciate you.

I also must mention our on site mechanics, my father James and brother Alex, who put some considerable time into the inner workings of Mich Mouse, I don’t necessarily understand what they did but she is still running so I credit a lot of that to them. Greg, Ryans dad, has been our on call mechanic and has been the most incredible help when things aren’t going right and we need a bit of direction. The late night phone calls and cries for help have always been answered and we are both so grateful for that.

We worked on the van continuously over the summer; putting in the floor and roof panels, installing the second battery and fridge, building the storage compartments and kitchen bench, figuring out the wiring and how to get the back door to open from the outside (cheers Angus), struggling to understand how to get our table to rise and the foam mattress upholstered. It was a lot. But, by the end of January we were finally finished, ready to hit the road and make our first stop in Eucla.

We have made so many mistakes along the way, some a lot bigger than others (including a broken fan, a systemless water system and a couch???) but as cheesy as it is to say, the things we have learnt and the lessons we can take from it make all the shit decisions kind of worth it. There seems to be something to work on and a thing to fix every other day, but this van is the home that we always dreamt it would be. Not mad about it.