We bought a Camper Trailer

With plans to do more longer style trips, my girlfriend and I decided that we wanted a bed to be more comfortable when we are camping for longer than a night or two. For our small budget, we didn't have a long list of must-haves, but what we did want was room to get changed, so a little room next to the bed and slide out cupboards for a kitchen. Anything more then this was an added bonus. We spent a couple of weeks searching through Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree trying to find a camper to suit our needs, but it wasn't until my Dad drove past one for sale on the side of the road that we found one that we really liked. 

From driving past it, we couldn't see anything flash, but it looked pretty good to us. The trailer is a 1994 7x5 box trailer with four jerry can and two gas bottle holders, Offroad tyres, Treg Swivel hitch, spare leaf springs and a spare wheel hub. 

After talking to the gentleman selling the trailer, I was able to receive some photos of it set up, we decided this was the one we wanted. It had everything we wanted and the added benefit of being an offroad trailer, which will make life a lot easier. 

Previous owners before the couple we purchased it off had taken the trailer along the Gipps River road up in the Kimberely and throughout much of Australia, however, had regularly serviced and replaced various parts. The couple we bought it off though had only used it two or three times and it was just taking up space. 

The first thing we did after purchasing the trailer was set it up and gave it a good clean. We pressured washed all the canvas and sorted out various bits and pieces that came with it. Setting up the main tent is really easy, it is simply grabbing each corner and pulling it over the top of the trailer, then adding two poles to hold up the additional room. Setting up the awning though is not as simple. Due to the canvas being old and high quality, it is very heavy, so dragging it from the top of the setup tent and adding poles was a challenge but we eventually got there. We did learn though it was missing poles, thankfully I had some of Dad's tent poles handy to give us a look of what it is like set up. We've just bought a few poles from Kmart to replace the ones missing.

As mentioned, the canvas is high quality, so no matter how much we washed it, no water got on the inside of the tent which is exactly what you want. A place where you can sleep and be nice and dry no matter how hard the storm comes in. 

The bed wasn't too bad for the trial night we had on it, but the plan is to replace it with a new mattress soon. My girlfriend and I are currently planning to do outback NSW for a week in October, so between now and then we will replace the mattress and buy ourselves a couple jerry cans so we can carry extra water and fuel. If we get time, we may even respray both the trailer and the kitchen to give it new life.