Meet Dolly; and while I know that you’ve probably already seen, met, and loved her as much as we have, it’s time to break down the nitty gritty of our largest (22 foot to be exact!) home on wheels. Featuring beds at both ends, including the sweetest of bunks, a spacious, fully functioning kitchen area, dining nook and heaps of storage space, Dolly rolls into a camping ground in style.

Utilising our signature brass accents, combined with pastels and quirky prints, we love Dolly’s fresh, retro, coastal vibe. In an effort to salvage as much of the original van as possible, we’ve restored the original handles, cabinetry and dining table in keeping with the van’s heritage. Dolly is a light, bright, breath of fresh air. She is our home away from home, our beach holiday on wheels. She is named to honour the legacy of Dolly Everett, who leaves behind a powerful message, “speak even if your voice shakes.” May her death not be in vain.

Ready to create your own dream home on wheels? Learn a few tips and tricks from us on how to buy and bring back to life your van – watch here.

Then, see below our resources guide where we sourced everything from the tiles, to the paint colours, bedding, and appliances for Dolly.

Overall Look and Feel

Interior Paint (Blue): Taubmans Crashing Waves
Interior Paint (White): Taubmans Big White
Exterior Paint (Blue): Taubmans Crashing Waves
Exterior Paint (White): Taubmans Big White
Flooring: Godfrey Hirst “Spotted Gum” Vinyl Planks from DecoRug
Cabinetry: Original cabinetry painted in White Knight Laminate Paint in Taubmans Crashing Waves
Cabinetry brass fronts: Arrow Metal
Door knobs: Original painted in White Knight Squirts in Satin Gold
Decal sign: Advanced Signworks

Dining

Bench fabric print: Palm Paisley in Sapphire from 3Beaches
Bench fabric navy: Navy Velvet from Warwick Fabric
Dining table: Original resurfaced in Laminex Carrara Laminate
Brass strip: George White

Kitchen Nook

Kitchen benchtop: Laminate Carrara by Laminex
Kitchen tiles: Tic Tac Tiles from Ebay
Kitchen tapware: Imported direct (Cedar and Suede)
Kitchen appliances: Dometic
Kitchen sink: Ebay

Beds

Bed linens queen: Quilt over from Adairs
Bed linens bunk beds: Quilt covers from Linen House, sheets from Savannah and Three, pillow cases from Pottery Barn Kids
Curtains: Warwick Fabric
Bed ladder: Oak dowel custom made by Michael

Small Decor

Vases: Kaz Morton Ceramics and Sheridan Australia
Blue bowl: Kmart

 DOLLY’S SHOP IT MOODBOARD

(Top to bottom L-R) 3 Beaches Palm Paisley Print | George White Brass Detailing | Nora Roberts Book | Kaz Morton Vase | Arrow Metal Woven Brass

I think that covers all of the big to little details on our gorgeous Dolly, but if not, please ask questions in the comments section below and I will do my best to source it. And for more vintage caravan goodness follow This Old Van on Instagram.

Carlene xx

I decided we wouldn’t go anywhere these July school holidays, given that we’ve booked holidays every other school holiday period of the year but then I discovered my kids have not 2, but 3 WEEKS off and that’s a week too many of trying to entertain, book in carers, and schedule play dates so now I’m on the hunt for a getaway. Let’s talk caravan parks.

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

I’m sifting through my options of parks tried and tested as well as some parks that show potential but which we’re yet to book. You might have noticed that the humble caravan park is now commonly referred to a ‘holiday resort,’ which sounds much fancier than the caravan parks of my youth. Granted, caravan parks of today generally offer much more than the park of the 80’s/90’s and operate under much high standards (cleaner bathrooms) so they now doubt deserve their new title.

Yamba

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Blue Dolphin has become our Easter holiday go-to for the whole extended family. Between us all, we book out all types of accomodation from a one bed cabin, caravan site, villa, and 3 bedroom apartment. We love that we can all stay according to our varying budgets and accommodation needs and still be in the one place. The kids scoot/bike around all day ‘house-hopping.’ It has 3 x pools and a kids slide/adventure area. The pool bar is heated but at Easter time, the other pools are like jumping into a ice bucket (freezing). In addition to the jumping pillow and Go Karts, this park has just installed a mini golf course and second playground to amuse the kids. Although the park is on the river, we’re more beach goers which is a short car trip. The kids love to bike ride into town for ice cream and whilst I love the easy ride, for them it’s all about the destination. Sounds so ‘holidayish’ doesn’t it? Yamba itself is the real attraction with its multiple beautiful beaches and slow seaside town vibe.

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Clarke’s Beach, Byron Bay

Clarke’s  is where you come to get the best of Byron without the price tag. We used to be in the habit of booking sites last minute and ending up in the worst site in the park. ie. the one that backs onto the main road, as was the case with our experience here but even then I could see how good it could be with the right site. The park sits atop the beach and any caravan park that is walking distance to the beach is my kind of park. The location is in fact the main attraction. We’ve booked a cabin instead of a van site these July holidays because it’s too cold to be getting up in the middle of the night to use public bathrooms. They actually have some fancy new, very contemporary cabins which we didn’t book in time to secure but are worth checking out here.

Byron Bay

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Ahhhh Adder! North Straddie is my spirit home. We’ve been coming at least once a year since we were kids and whilst it’s only a 45 minute ferry ride I always feel like I’m far, far away. In 2011, the island which falls under Redland council jurisdiction, was granted Native Title status by the Australian government. The move officially recognises the Island’s original custodians, the Quandamooka people. Straddie or Minjerribah, its Indigenous name, meaning ‘island in the Sun,’ offers multiple camping options (Cylinder, Flinders, Amity) but we’ve been staying at Adder Rock since we were babies. It’s large but never feels crowded and it offers a patrolled beach, like Cylinder but is never as busy. The real perk is that there are heaps of trees and shade is important when you’re camping in the dead of a Queensland Summer. The amenities are limited, consisting of a playground and 2 x toilet/shower blocks that are never quite as clean as mainland standards but we tend to overlook that for the park’s superior location.

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Cotton Tree Holiday Park

Someone has to die before you can get a spot at Cotton Tree Holiday Park. We stayed here pre-caravan days and set up camp in our camper trailer. You’ll be happy to know no one died for us to stay. My Auntie used to book the same spot for 6 weeks every year so we sub-letted her spot. She had the best unpowered site in the park, almost right on the beach with uninterrupted views of the water. The beauty of this park is it’s located where the river meets the sea so you if you want flat water you head left and if you want waves you head right. The downside is, it’s busy. A bit too busy for an introvert like me. It was packing up from this trip that sparked our caravan renovating journey. It poured rain the entire pack up process which meant for a very muddy situation and as you know means the trailer needed to be set up again to dry out once home. We were ready for the easy life! Cue vintage caravan renovation number one, Millie.

Cotton Tree, Sunshine Coast

Northstar Hastings Point

We’ve visited Northstar, Hastings Point a few times now mostly due to its close proximity to us on the Gold Coast. Although, we haven’t been there since it changed hands. It used to be apart of the Big 4 brand, which generally means clean amenities, a pool, water park, jumping pillow and kids club. According to the website, it’s undergone same fairly major renovations ie. the water park appears to be twice the size, which would have my kids very excited. You’ll be happy to know the onsite cafe does a decent coffee and a few minutes up the road at Cabarita, The Stunned Mullet does some mean fish and chips. If you’re a bit fancier, you could otherwise treat yourself at Paper Daisy in the very instagrammable, Halcyon House.

On the road

Carlene xx

You would have had to have been on a committed Instagram Hiatus to have missed our Summer holiday spam this past January. Sorry, not sorry. We book our North Stradbroke Island (a 60-minute barge ride from Cleveland, in Brisbane’s bayside) holiday a year in advance, every year and after the crazy Christmas lead up we’re always hankering for this trip. Michael and I have been holidaying at Straddie since we were babies and this year, again, it did not disappoint.  It’s our Spirit place and breathes life into us after increasingly fast-paced years.

The water is crystal-clear and you can usually always find a protected beach with slow, rolling waves. As soon as we land on the island you can feel a shift in the air and our attitudes. We love that it has barely changed in 36 years apart from a few more cafes and a health food shop. There are few decisions to make other than what ice cream flavour do I want and which beach today? And nowhere else do I go into full and complete holiday mode. My brain goes to mush and I’m ‘off’ until I hit the mainland again.

Last year, we caravanned at Adder Rock in un-renovated Dolly so it was a treat this year to take the old girl back over all done up and considerably more comfortable. I’ll camp or caravan but I have to be comfortable and it can’t involve too much effort. We work hard through the year so I don’t want my holiday to involve more work. I want to be comfortable and have running water and ideally, power. I also won’t do blow up mattresses. I take my bed situation seriously, complete with eye mask and white noise. You might argue we’re more like ‘glampers’ and you’d probably be right.

This was also the first time we’ve been also able to travel in comfort. Last year we partnered with Isuzu Ute and we’ve been driving their MU-X, which is worlds apart from Michael’s unloved work ute, which has been our mode of camping transport up until now. You should know too that Dolly is a 22-foot vintage van so she’s far from petite and the MU-X tows like a boss. You have to have your wits about you when towing anything, really but this is especially true with big van like Dolly and in this vehicle, Michael feels really confident and more importantly, safe. For me, I’m just happy to be enjoying the comfort of leather seats, a DVD player, reverse camera and automatic transmission.

Whilst on the Island we took the opportunity to do some beach driving. The vehicle beaches provide great pippies-seeking opportunities and one arvo we even found an idyllic spot in the sand dunes to BBQ some kebabs and marshmallows. It looks too good to be true, right?! On a side note, if you’re driving on the beach please slow down if you see children because despite our incessant, neurotic reminders to them to look left and right on vehicle beaches, kids are just not expecting cars on the beach and they can’t hear you coming over the sound of the ocean. Also, when kids get on a beach they run. Everywhere. Fast.

It sounds very indulgent, I know, but we squeezed in one more, different Island adventure before we dragged our sorry selves back to work, this time to a different island. We were back on the mainland for 2 days before we boarded our second barge destined to Moreton Island (a 90 minute barge ride from the Port of Brisbane), which locals already know is a 100 per cent sand island (no bitumen roads) so you actually can’t drive on to the island without a 4WD. Most visitors to the Island come to drive, fish and snorkel and we can vouch for the array of marine life because from our balcony we watched a 5-foot shark casually swimming horizontally along the shoreline 10 metres from the beach. I’m not exaggerating, people!

If you’re an avid four-wheel-driver like Michael and the kids (I prefer my car trips sans the rock n rolling) then Moreton Island is where you want to be. Some of the beach tracks on Moreton provide some serious sand driving, which I think visitors to this island drive along for the sheer fun of the challenge. Any male reading this right now is thinking, yeah dah! But I’m more of a let’s just get from A to B kinda gal, which is how I enjoy the MUX day to day but that’s a post for another day.

I know this post is a tease when we’re only freshly back at work but the Hot Cross buns in the supermarket are an indicator that the Easter holidays are not that far away so maybe we can inspire you to book an island adventure getaway.

Carlene xx

A couple of months back,  Singapore Tourism Board (STB) reached out to us and offered to host us on a family trip to Singapore. Yeah yeah, it’s a tough gig but someone’s got to do it. We’d never been to Singapore (I had a layover at the airport about 15 years ago but that doesn’t count) so it was sort of a no-brainer. The deal was we would take part in a study which would gather data by measuring our emotional response to each activity.

Here’s a quick lil promo clip STB put together with a summary of the predominant emotions we felt during each activity.

As we rolled out our holiday snaps on social media, we had a lot of queries from those with plans to travel to Singapore seeking advice on the hot spots, questioning how it fares as a holiday destination with kids, how long it takes to travel from A to B….. so I figured I’d take the opportunity to spill on our trip (it’s also not every holiday that you have your own photographer on tap to capture all these candid moments that mother’s are generally deprived of).

Let me start by explaining the headsets below. For the first two days of our visit we were accompanied by two researchers from The University of Sydney who collected data, which involved us wearing these headsets for a few minutes at each location to measure our emotions. So very 2017! Tech head, Paddy, thought this was the coolest thing ever, while our ever-contrary, Stella thought it was just a little bit “weird.”

The whole process was actually far less intrusive than it looks. Once you’ve been contestants on The Block (where cameras follow you you everywhere) you are perfectly comfortable with being shadowed. We had two days with the researchers and camera crew and two days with just our guide and driver. Everyone involved was incredibly conscious of ensuring we had privacy, freedom and fun.

Our first stop on our first day was to the at The Bell of Happiness at Faber Peak, an iconic Singapore hot spot. After ringing that very loud bell (just because) we all wrote a wish on a significantly smaller bell and hung it up with the thousands of other wishes above a pretty amazing view of Singapore’s harbour.  I recall taking my wish very seriously at the time but can’t for the life of me remember what it was. No doubt I covered off all basis’ by requesting health and happiness.

At Faber Peak we boarded the cable cars, which we rode over to Sentosa Island (home to Universal Studios and Adventure Cover Waterpark, amongst other attractions) to have brekky. The cable cars are a must-do if you want to see Singapore at its best.

Michael and I were so struck by the floral spectacle that is Singapore. We’ve never experienced a city that places such importance on its landscaping. There were workers tending to gardens at every turn. And of course, Stella and the flowers – like a moth to a flame. It took some convincing that these flowers weren’t there for picking and making potpourri.

Next stop was the S.E.A. Aquarium, which under sea level is literally like an underwater world. You could scoot through in an hour or much more depending on the interest levels /personality of the kids.  Paddy would have preferred more time in there than Stella was willing to allow.

From the Aquarium we stopped for lunch at the Tanjong Beach Club, which was a very welcome rest and recharge break. There is no real equivalent to this place in Australia that I know of. You can dine or just have some drinks and then have open access to the pool and beach. The water was a sight for sore eyes because Singapore is HOT! Luckily, we were acclimatised because the temperature and humidity was on par to what we were experiencing back home at the time. Nonetheless, its a good reason to book accommodation with a pool, of which there is a smorgasboard in Singapore.

Somehow my swimmers didn’t make it into our backpack, which had me sidelined during this swim session.

After a little down time at the hotel, the afternoon saw us visiting Gardens by the Bay, which really encompasses everything Singapore is about –  it’s not called the ‘garden city’ for nothing. In Gardens by the Bay is Cloud Forest, which boasts the largest indoor waterfall in the world, and sits amongst breathtaking garden display, all housed under this a huge and very impressive glass dome, below.

This trip reinforced what I already know about my children. Paddy has a quenchless thirst for stimulation; new sights, new sounds, new foods. He can go, go, go. He thinks everything is amazing, everything excites him (sometimes I wish I was Paddy). Stella, is the absolute polar opposite. She’s not easily impressed. Some might even say she’s a young cynic. She requires little stimulation. She’s the type of kids who is most content colouring. She needs down time, which meant that she was less content on walking and seeing sights. She was however, very happy to be “doing” in which case she was in her element in kid-wonderland, Sentosa Island where we had some fun at Adventure Cove Waterpark and Universal Studios (no pics of those, sorry. You’ll just have to take my word for it).

Above, Stella and I are having some down time waiting for the Garden Rhapsody light show to start. When the sky blackens these trees (pic above) come to life with a charming music and lights display. It’s free, casual, and you can just wander on in. It was just a relaxing way to cap off a big day before dinner.

You’ve got to eat Singaporean street food.  We dined at Satay on the Bay and it was our favourite meal of the trip. In Singapore, street food isn’t a high risk dining option as it can be in some Asian countries. They are heavily regulated by food safety operations and each stall is required to display its allocated safety grade of A, B or C.

Sorry if you’re hungry as you read this, I’m still on food. On day two, we experienced an authentic Singaporian breakfast called Ya Kun. This it when it really sucks being gluten intolerant. It’s made up of a type of toast with a jam that’s made with coconut, egg white, and sugar. Paddy and Michael both overate. They have slow off switches when it comes to food. It’s called gluttony. Michael and I also tried a traditional Singaporean cup of coffee that was surprisingly delicious.

I think we saw Singapore from every possible angle. The above pic was the view from Marina Sands Bay Skypark observation deck, which is that crazy impressive hotel building who’s rooftop mimics the shape of a ship. It actually looks like a ship is sitting on top of a really tall building and with this A-M-A-Z-I-N-G pool, below. You are required to be a hotel guest to swim in the pool BTW but we were happy just to see this impressive piece of engineering.

We ate lunch at Long Beach Seafood Restaurant at Dempsey Hill, where we flung our food around in honour of Chinese New Year. I’m not sure exactly why this is a thing but if we’re told to throw some food around and be really obnoxious about it, we’re not going to argue.

At Jurong Bird Park we watched a live bird show where extrovert, Paddy was thrilled to play a role.

We were fortunate to visit Singapore during Chinese New Year, which was actually just a coincidence. It’s both, a good and bad time to visit. Many shops and restaurants are shut over this period so if you’re a keen shopper don’t visit Singapore over Chinese New Year. For us, it was ideal timing, as our activities were family focused, which didn’t allow for my type of shopping anyway and it allowed us to experience the best Singapore style celebrations. I mean, if you’re going to experience a new culture in a new city the best way to do it is to witness how its people celebrate.

We braved the crowds in China Town so the kids could pick up some souvenirs. Apparently, our kids get the same fleeting thrill from consuming cheap collectables as I do.

We spent 4 solid days in Singapore and we were fortunate to pack in as much as we did, which was due to a well thought out itinerary and guide (yes, we were spoiled)! I get that as young carefree adults, many prefer to holiday with no schedule and a take it as it comes approach but when you are in a new city, for a cultural experience, with kids in tow, it pays to do some research ahead of time so that you don’t find yourself trying to make decisions with the pressure of impatient kids pulling at your arm.

Ladies, the absolute best tip I can give you for travelling in Singapore (and this is very important) is pack your curling wand. This city takes humidity to a whole new level so don’t even bother with the the hair dryer or straightener. Roll with it and when I say roll with it I mean curl it.

Carlene xx