We caught the train into the caravan show yesterday, and it was like a truly genuine adventure for us. Even having our local station only a 10min stroll away we never use trains ... that may now change, we had a ball. Yesterday we walked to the station, and hoping for success we rolled the public transport dice. We had to transit through Southern Cross .... "transit"?? thats what you do in international flights so I presume its the same. We were both like a cross between school kids and tourists. The Princess's Myki had no credit we discovered as we dodged the boom gates and ran up the ramp just as the train approached. We took the punt and rode the lines illegally. That was awesomely gangster of us as we rarely get the opportunity to go all Revolutionary and toe to toe with The Man or stick to the System. I sat in another carriage just in case, until after the Princess topped up online as we rattled along. To our surprise theres no Myki tapper inside the train .... bit weird we thought. We made it to Southern Cross, getting more gangster by the minute, particularly without the Gestapo detecting us. We landing in terminal 12, needing to departed at terminal 14 which we suspected could expose us as mature delinquents.
We $hat ourselves and tried to tap the Princess into the system at Southern Cross by reaching over the entry gates, but the credit hadn't applied by the time our Showgrounds electric steed would arrive .... so with a new sense of bravado the conspiracy offence number 2 was now being locked and loaded then we couldn't get out of terminal 12 to get to terminal 14 so we had to sheepishly approached an on deck Gestapo man, fully expecting that that would go south and we would possibly have to make a run for it .... he could not have been any less of a threat and he just happily and enthusiastically ushered us to the permanently open gate, that people were just filling thru. That crowd of people were ruining our level of Revolution. The credit had arrived by the time we left the Showgrounds so once again we could resume normal broadcasting, and denounce the unforgivable sins of the public transport system freeloaders.
Nothing to really see at the caravan show to be honest. We looked in a gazillion copies of the same vans regurgitated throughout the showgrounds just with different stickers and prices on them. It was impossible to find a so called "offroad van" that I couldn't find many reasons for them to break off road. One interesting thing was Elite caravans proud as punch haven risen from going broke under new ownership, more a reflection of our apathy and short memories than their audacity. I struggle to see how a completely unknown newly invented brand could possibly be more on the nose than a brand that's already gone broke, and taken peoples money to the liquidation grave.
Jayco have ditched the Adventurer (a prediction I made here not long after they appeared, just saying) in favour of a slightly pimped up version of the Outback which is called an All Terrain and seems to be limited to different stickers, higher price and 150mm drawbar. I predicted Jayco's Adventurer experiment would flush a golden one off opportunity to smash their way into the high end off road van segment, and they certainly haven't disappointed.
Anyways, the day was awesome and we may go again next year (or next weekend for that matter) for no other reason to utilise our newly acquired public transport adventure skills