G'day all.
I've been a camper trailer camper for about 18 months now. Grew up in Coffs, lived most of my adult life in Wisconsin, USA, but finally talked the boss into moving here a couple of years ago. With the cash we brought from liquidating our lives we bought a <10k brand X cheapo soft floor camper trailer and a 2004 Pajero diesel with 300k on it.
I did as much research as I could on brand X, and didn't find much in the way of negative reviews, so I took a gamble, figuring if I took good care of it and upgraded anything that was truly bad it should be up to the task. My figuring was wrong, and while the trailer might be fine for people who only dust it off once or twice a year, we like to go at least once a month, and despite my best efforts it continues to fall apart and fail with every trip we take.
I didn't have much more luck with the pajero, a month after we bought it the fuel pump packed it in, costing us over 5k to rebuild. At the time we considered scrapping it, but decided to commit, fixed the pump, added a lift, bash plates, 6 new tyres, etc etc. But it never stopped being a problem either.
But that's where the sadness ends, because those 2 money pits established beyond a shadow of a doubt that my wife and our 2 daughters, who had never camped before leaving the USA, absolutely LOVE camping. Cannot get enough of it. And if we can't camp on a given weekend, we like to be on the beach. They're not quite as big on 4WDing, but I'm working on that...
So a couple of months ago we said bugger it, got rid of the problematic paj, found a 2009 Patrol with only 77k on it in pretty close to immaculate condition and with most of the extras already, and just 8 sleeps from now we take delivery of a Jayco swan outback. We considered another soft floor of higher quality, but with loading it up, setting up the tent, and working out of tubs and bags, compared to the swan's 15 minutes setup time and cupboards and shelves so that everything is always in place it was a pretty easy choice.
We don't want to do work, we just want to camp, and we want to be able to do it at the drop of a hat, and we reckon the swan will allow that, while still being able to get to all the places a smaller offroad trailer can.
So I mainly joined this forum to ask fellow swan owners questions, but there's plenty of good stuff here, so you'll be seeing me around. Cheers!
PS - if there are any Coffs area folks here, we LOVE Illaroo and Pebbly beach campgrounds in Yuraygir NP, and Platypus Flat outside Dorrigo, and DID NOT LOVE Woody Head campground at Iluka. We have a lot more exploring to do, so please feel free to hit me with suggestions if you know a place you think we'd like, it'd be much appreciated!
