A'van Pregnancy!

A'van Pregnancy!

We had just retired (from paid work - only to discover that you don't even get smokos when slaving away in retirement) and wanted an A'van. However, at that time we lived in Newport in Sydney, on the side of a cliff face, with a steeply curved narrow drive off a narrow busy winding road (think of the Swiss Alps and you will get the picture!). If we couldn't store the van on site - then no van.

The garage was at the end of the drive, with a carport in front of the garage, all perched up on a suspended concrete slab having a 5 metre drop on the ocean side. Reversing the van in was the obvious solution, but I don't think we would live to tell the tale (Sydney drivers leave a lot to be desired). The theoretical solution was to drive straight onto the drive with the van, disconnect the van, swivel it around (on a drive steeply sloping both across and along), ease the car back up the drive past the van, roll the van into the garage ready for a speedy exit the next time needed. Simple.

Unfortunately, van width plus car width was considerably greater than drive width! Stone retaining wall on the inner side, Pacific Ocean on the outer side. So, drive had to be widened by building a timber platform, cantilevered out from the drive to give sufficient extra width to allow car to reverse past van. To avoid the project becoming bigger than Ben Hur, platform size had to be an absolute minimum length and width, yet still serve the purpose. Platform was completed as the delivery date for the van was getting perilously close. This is when we acquired the cold feet! Would it work or would our new baby get away from us and finish up in the sea, demolishing half the house as it did so?

Maco Mule to the rescue! I reasoned that if on first arrival at home (probably in the dark and pouring rain) we "popped on" a Maco Mule, it would all be a piece of cake! But would it? The Maco Mule is heavy and couldn't be a permanent attachment. It had to go straight on as soon as we got back from Hallam - hence the angle bracket and jockey wheel clamp which could be bolted on between the coupling and the tow frame (at our first night stop in Drouin - subject of another story, see below). The clamp had to be on the same side as the existing jockey wheel since the Maco mechanism is on the right hand side of the tyre. Still grave uncertainties. In the end, we built up a full size model of the Sportliner to prove the point (see photo of the world's most basic A'van, at rest at the bottom of our alpine drive).

When judgment day arrived, whilst considerably more hairy than with our "model", the system worked, although it was necessary to let the van down the drive by chaining it to the two tow lugs under the front bumper of the Forester. Then, with Pam on the Maco direction handle, it was just a case of "where you want it Guv?".

Back to Drouin: Coming back from the amenities block, we could hear someone or something crashing around inside our new baby! Finally, plucking up courage, we opened the door to be greeted by our first visitor.

I've bored you enough!

Keith Thomas