I really hope that when you read that title in your head, you did so with the dulcet tones of Maxwell Smart Agent 86. I know I did when I wrote it. It was a comment Max used when he was so close to solving something, nearly being right about something or simply surviving a close call.

That’s what happened to our next planned trip. We missed it by that much! As I write this, it’s a Thursday evening, and we should have been sitting in the van, likely freezing, in a caravan park at Currarong on the NSW South Coast. The scheduled first service was due on Wednesday at Nowra, and then a relaxing 5 night stay near the coast in the beautiful Shoalhaven Region was calling.

But as was the case for our Alaskan Cruise and Canadian journey in 2020, Covid had other plans. With NSW going into lockdown as at 6pm on the Sunday prior, we received notice from the caravan park that same afternoon announcing our refund. I must say, the response from them has been incredible. Not only did they volunteer the refund, they paid it almost immediately. It is this type of service that will get us back.

Whilst I’m mentioning the caravan park, the booking process with them was such a pleasant experience. Clearly they weren’t overly busy when I rang and made the booking, but we were offered a choice from many options of sites with different characteristics. They even took the time to work out what we were looking for and the type of stay we wanted to have and recommended one. They had no issue with the dog, even though it was a school holiday period and their website stated dogs allowed outside school holidays only. Add that to the way they handled the Covid impact and I’m definitely making sure we get back there at some stage.

Whilst it was unfortunate, and we’re not Robinson Crusoe by any stretch, I do support the Covid call by the government, and one that I’m not for 1 minute complaining about or regretting. However it was the irony of it, that when we were about to finally get out again that something jumped in the way and put the brakes on the plans.

The positive is that the van is now more prepared. We added to our inventory with some garbage bins, a camp table, portable lighting and a new dog bed. I installed the Savvylevel^(tm), fixed the BBQ and altered the hitch height. Taking all that into account, the next trip should be a reduced effort in preparation.

Now as it turns out, I wanted to have this blog site to talk about our journeys in the van with the dog and document our experiences and learnings along the way. So far I’ve written 1 post about a trip and 2 more about not going on a trip. Definitely not my intention, but it is times like this, the challenges in even trying to get away somewhere that contribute to the overall journey of owning a van. I’d like to promise that next time I’ll be writing about a magical few days relaxing by a river or lake or the beach, just the 3 of us, campfire burning, and a beer and a wine in hand. But even I’m not that silly. You can’t predict what will happen, you just have to make the most of what you’re given and take the opportunities as they arise.

Happy travels and see you around traps somewhere!