Buying a Motorhome in WA

 

Lyn & Phillip Bromley N14783
January 2008

It's Friday night, 11.30pm and we are just about to land at Broome airport in the midst of a deluge of rain in the middle of the dry season.

Where did all this start? Well we sold our beautiful old Motor Sailer "Joshua S". We did quite a bit of cruising up and down the east coast of Australia during the 17 years of ownership from Lake Macquarie to as far as Cooktown and Lizard Island in FNQ. It was time to swap over to wandering this beautiful land of ours in a motorhome.

We joined the CMCA about a year ago and when our beloved yacht was sold we started to look for a motorhome. Our preferred vehicle was a LWB Toyota Coaster. We also preferred an open style layout plus a shower & wc and a 4 person dinette. We searched the Members Market on the CMCA website constantly and wouldn't you know it the one that took our interest was in WA. We thought that might be ok as we were fl ying to Perth for a wedding and we could drive it home. But after contacting the owner we found it was in Broome.

Wow! Broome, that couldn't be further away from Lake Macquarie in NSW if we tried. Well let's get some more info, so on our request the owner emailed us about 20 or so photos, thank goodness for the computer age. Lots of phone calls later it was looking more and more like the one with our name on it. It had most on our wish list except the 4 person dinette but we could see how we could alter things to fi t one in. (Husband) Phillip is a motor mechanic so he called the RAC in WA and was put through to the Broome dealer who agreed to do a pre purchase inspection for us. He phoned us back next day with a good report so we took the plunge and purchased the Toyota Coaster LWB 4.2lt 6cyl diesel sight unseen.

At this stage I must say the solo lady owner bent over backward to do everything to help us through the process, even looking after the vehicle for another 5 weeks after we had paid for it, until we could fl y up there and take delivery. She had our money and the motorhome so it was a deal on trust. We went with that gut feeling that it felt right. So here we were running across the tarmac at Broome airport getting soaking wet hoping we had done the right thing. The previous owner was there to greet us holding up our name on a piece of cardboard just like you see in the movies. Hugs all round we proceeded to the caravan park where our home was waiting for us and also where our host owned a home. All our concerns drained away as we stepped into our dry and welcoming new home.

Even down to the breakfast basket and chocolates. It was just as we had expected. We were happy and so was a very relieved previous owner. By this time it was 2am (4am back in NSW where we had left early that morning) so we fell into bed to the sound of rain on the roof and had the best sleep. This was the first rain Broome had had since November last year, 4 inches fell that weekend, very much needed even if it was out of season.

It had been 19 years since we had been in Broome, that was 1986 when we travelled around Oz with a caravan & 4wd. What a huge change, for a start the population had quadrupled, lots of new development everywhere, but to our pleasant surprise it hadn't lost its frontier Broome uniqueness. The previous owner visited next morning with the offer of her Suzuki to run around Broome sightseeing and shopping.

We were very grateful for her wonderful hospitality and returned the favour later with dinner out at the Cable Beach Resort, Sunset restaurant. Unfortunately there was no sunset only rain, rain and more rain. What a beautiful resort though, we were treated to a sightseeing drive around in an electric buggy by one of the friendly staff through the magnificent gardens that surround the tropical Broome style buildings.

After 3 days in Broome Phil had checked under over and through everything he could on our new motorhome. Very satisfied we loaded the motorhome with food, water, fuel and two enthusiastic new owners to start our journey south in "Alfie" (named after my late Dad who loved travelling this wonderful country of ours). It didn't take us long to realise we were going against the tide. We have never seen so many caravans, motorhomes, campers, trailers etc on the road travelling north, we felt like we should turn around and follow along.

I could go on forever about our wonderful trip home but to cut a long story short "Alfie" went like a charm, didn't use a drop of water or oil for the 7,000 km trip and averaged around 20 mpg (don't ask me about kms to litres).

We were introduced to that great book "Camps Australia Wide No 3" by another motorhomer. It then became our bible and we stayed in many wonderful roadside & other camp spots & had lots of campfires and happy hours with other travellers on our trip. Don't miss a great experience; the 50,000 acre "Indee Station" is a very welcoming stop south of Port Hedland on the Great Northern Highway, we wished we could have had a longer stay than one night at this fascinating property with very friendly hosts. During the whole trip home, after leaving Broome, we only stayed one night in a Caravan Park, which was in Kalgoorlie.

We travelled down the inland Great Northern Highway from Port Hedland through that beautiful desert country with stunning scenery, quaint old mining towns and a magnificent road. We met up and travelled with old friends for several days who also have a motorhome and who live in Perth, then had a wonderful stopover weekend in Perth for our nephew's wedding.

After the wedding we joined up with sister Jan and her Phil in their campervan and travelled back home to NSW in company. We had an amazing trip across the Nullarbor, have never seen so many rainbows before, as we passed through and were surrounded by rain squalls on and off for the 3 day crossing. We also saw the very unusual sight of hundreds of kangaroos drinking water out of the puddles on the road; we had to drive slowly for several hours to avoid running over them. All in all it was a very successful purchase and a wonderful four week trip home.