OK so maybe it is a bit harder to get an inner spring mattress than I thought. MAKE SURE YOU GET THE EXACT HEIGHT MEASUREMENT IF YOU BUY A MATTRESS FROM SOMEONE THAT DOESN'T MAKE CAMPER/CARAVAN MATTRESSES ALL THE TIME!!
So we got a quote from Made-To-Measure, quoting between $400 for their Premium Queen size to $550 for their Superior. They come in single sided or double sided format, with the single sided 150mm high (180mm on the Superior) or 190mm high for the double sided (230mm on the Superior).
It is $100 freight to Canberra, so price wise their Deluxe at $430 + freight, middle of the range, is about the same as Makin Mattress's offer. After a bit of umming and ah'ing we decided that we'd prefer double sided and as Makin Mattresses told us their (double sided) mattress is 170mm, that would be better than M-T-M's. We were also more comfortable having tried the Makin Mattresses product, whereas we hadn't tried out the M-T-M one, so that clinched it for us.
Went back to Makin this weekend to settle the purchase. Luckily we spoke to someone this time that had a bit more knowledge than the salesman we spoke to first time, because we've just avoided making a big mistake. Here's how:
So we were told previously their 'low profile mattress comes in at 170mm high - at the top of our range. We looked at 4 mattresses from the hotel/motal (yeugh!!) to something more exxy (can't remember the name, but it's $499). Having settled on the most exxy one as yours truly needs to be careful with his crook back, we went back yesterday to order. Luckily I mentioned something about 170mm height and the manager was there. He said that only the hotel/motel mattress comes out at 170mm. The one we were looking at wouldn't get below 200mm! Obviously the previous sales guy had assumed all the mattresses come up the same height when the springs are cut down, but obviously there's more padding on the more exxy mattresses. So only having the hotel/motel model available at a low enough height for us we decided to call it a day. A lucky, $550 escape.
If you go to Makin, and they do have an excellent product and can help us campers, just make sure you get them to find the exact height measurements of the mattress from their book!
So we just made a call to Paul at M-T-M and ordered their Deluxe single sided queen, and are very happy with his advice so far.....