If you love to travel and love man's best friend, this will give you an insight into the joys - and otherwise, of what can happen when you put the two together.

Caravanning'Down Under'

A true tale from our travels

Life on the road is fun.  Two people, a caravan, a wagon, the open road.  No worries, no commitments, just follow the sun and your own inclinations.

 Life on the road with two dogs is, well, still fun.  But.  Take the time in Nambucca Heads for instance. We were staying at the White Albatross Caravan Park. One night, Lucy (our 4 year old Maltese-Shizu) decided in the small hours of the night that she needed to go outside. 

 
Peter took her out and after she had attended to her needs he was shepherding her back inside when disaster struck.  In the next van was a fox terrier who had chosen just that minute to also feel the call of nature.  He came by our van, a situation not to be tolerated by Lucy. 

 
She barked and commenced to chase him away.  Away they both  went and then decided that this was great fun. We hadn’t nicknamed Lucy “the pocket rocket” for nothing.  Around the vans they tore calls from their masters ignored. 

 
Eventually two angry and flustered men collared their dogs and shoved them inside.  Lucy settled down to contentedly sleep away the rest of the night but we heard that foxie barking for the next hour.

 
We were novice caravanners who had made the decision only a few months before to retire and take to the road.  We were now setting out on our big adventure to see Australia with a 7.3metre van and our two small dogs.

 
Mimi is a 14-year-old miniature poodle.   She has been our good mate for ten years now, since we rescued her from the pound. The day we brought her home she was frightened from her ordeal at the pound, in need of a bath and had a red and green ball clamped in her mouth, her “security blanket”.

 
I decided to nurse her on the trip home.  She looked at me with trust in her eyes, put her head on my shoulder and cuddled up to me.  She won my heart then and has been able to wrap me around her little paw ever since.

 
“Saved from death row,” says my friend Maria, “to live a life of luxury.” If chicken wings, liver treats, ball games and love is luxury, then she is right.

 
Lucy is a four year old Maltese-Shizu whom we inherited when she was two and have grown to love equally with Mimi.   The two are good pals but Mimi lets there be no doubt that she is top dog, a fact reluctantly accepted by Lucy for the moment.

We had arrived at the White Albatross Caravan Park a few days earlier.  We reached there with a sigh of relief, having made the trip from Sydney over two days.

 
The entrance to the park was not well marked.  Peter mistook the turn off and went straight into the parking lot for the fishing area, sort of a quay, sea ahead, green fence on the left and cars parked on the right.  No room to turn so he had to reverse back about 500metres. Not easy with only two days experience of driving this 14.5 metre rig

 
Somehow he managed.  “I guess the locals enjoyed that and had a good laugh,” he said.   I was just happy to have arrived and found a good site and unhitched.

 
The next morning Peter was chatting to another caravanner when he remarked “By the way, I must thank you for winning me $5 yesterday.” 

“How come?”  

“ A group of us were watching from the tavern when you came in yesterday and took the wrong road.  It was obvious that you were fairly new to this.  There was a lot of disagreement as to whether you would be able to back up and turn or not.  I bet $5 you would make it. Thanks.”

I told you it is fun!

© Copyright Kate Loveday 2007