Please May I Borrow Your Teleporter?

This is a tale of two people trying to find and purchase a roof tent.  

You may be wondering what could possibly be so difficult about buying an item which, for this particular car, is exceptionally common. 
Well I'll tell you. 

See, roof tents are readily available second hand. The problem is, most of them are not in Canberra, or even Sydney, but Victoria and Brisbane. A pain to get to just to take a look at a tent to make sure it isn't mouldy. 

The other issue is, there are brands which are extremely reliable, and brands which are extremely unreliable, and not much in between. Even for one of the dodgier brands, you're still looking at over $2000 to purchase one and have it sent to you, with no way of knowing whether the seller has been honest with you about the condition it's currently in.  

Okay, what on earth does one of these tents look like then? How does one camp on the roof of one's car, and why is this a good idea - sounds uncomfortable! 

Actually, they're pretty brilliant. You get to be off the ground (always a plus when you're heading North in Australia), you can leave your bedding all set up in there, and they take about 7 seconds put up and down. So from the moment you decide you need a kip and get out of the car, you're looking at about 10 seconds of setup between you and that bed. Since I'm still waiting for ours, I turned to Google for some pictures:

This is a roof tent. There's a mattress in there!

They fold down nice and tidy inside a hard shell. 

After a few purchases that turned out to be scams (thank you eBay for your buyer protection policies), my partner decided we'd be better off having one made to our own specifications by one of the manufacturing companies in China. Now, I was skeptical (because I'm slightly geriatric in my approach to buying things online), but given that these companies manufacture tents for the better brands anyway, and it would end up costing us less than one of the good brands while retaining that level of quality, it seemed like a pretty solid plan. 

My partner organised everything (thank goodness) and after a few weeks of negotiations, a tent was commissioned.  Payment was made, customs organised, port fees calculated, and in no time our tent was on its way in a container on a ship.  

A few weeks out of the estimated delivery date, my partner jumps online to track the ship and comes across a slight snag. A news article informing the world that one of the biggest shipping companies in the world has filed for bankruptcy, with all of their ships being seized and returned to the port of origin. Not good, since our container was on one. 
The Australian: Hanjin Shipping Files for Bankruptcy

After no small amount of stress and some minor panic attacks that our precious tent wouldn't arrive in time (if at all), we set about trying to find out for sure what ship it was on. Extensive and determined online sleuthing yielded for us the container number, who owned the container, and what ship that container had been put on most recently. 
We held our breath as the page loaded, and exhaled with relief as it appeared our tent was on a ship owned by a different company, and was on schedule for delivery as planned. 

Phew! 

We calmed down and congratulated ourselves on not panicking (like, at all) with a stiff drink that evening.

That was a few weeks ago, and it docked at Botany Bay in Sydney on Friday 17th September. All we had to do then was wait for it to be unpacked and cleared for collection, at which point we could drive to Sydney to collect it and bring it home - at last! 

This morning the email finally arrived. We were allowed to go and collect our package!! 

After a quick phone call to work, my partner arranged to take the day off to go to Sydney and collect it. 

Like all good stories, it has a happy ending: I just got a text - he found it! 

The fateful package, finally in our possession! Woohoo!

Australia is apparently a big place. . .

Having spent a fair amount of time sussing out other countries, it seemed like a good idea to suss out my 'own backyard' as it were, and spend some time travelling a bit of Australia. A friend from England voiced her plans to come to Australia in 2016 to do just that, so we decided to make it happen. 

Out came the maps and the brainstorming began: where did we want to go? How much time did we have? To fly, to drive or both?

It transpired we had 3 weeks (as stipulated by my friend's employer - fair enough), about 6 places we wanted to see (none of which were close to each other, naturally) and a pre-existing condition that we actually spend time seeing an area, rather than doing a fly-through visit.  With just 3 weeks to work with, we needed to choose our top 3 destinations and lock them in: 

The Great Ocean Road, Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.

Next question: are we driving or flying between these places? If we fly we'll be spending a lot on airfares and accommodation and may still need to hire a car when we get to each destination, or fork out for day tours; if we drive we'll be spending a lot on fuel and also need to hire a car, to the tune of $3000 in bond, payable upfront with restrictions on where you can drive it once you get up North. 

Quite a conundrum. 

That is, until my partner, who owns an FJ Cruiser, suggested we take his car and put a roof tent on it. 

Thus solving both the problem of transport and of accommodation in one fell swoop. 
Two birds, one Tonka shaped stone. 
YES! 

Our route, starting and finishing in Melbourne

Route confirmed, we all agreed the purchase of a roof tent was in order and the plan was put into motion. 


Getting our hands on a roof tent provided its own challenges, but that's another story.  
You can read about that particular drama in "Please May I Borrow Your Teleporter?"