2026 Festival Tour – What a Month! (Part 1)

Antigone are I just back from our 2026 festival tour.  It didn’t quite match the plan.

The plan

Travelling with our caravan and a support worker (Janey 20-29 March and Catherine 29 March to 6 April) as follows:

• 20-22 March – Yackandandah Folk Festival, camping at Beechworth
  • 20 Mar 7pm The Beez gig – their only gig for the festival
  • 21 Mar 8am Yackandandah Rail Trail parkrun
• 23-29 March – Blue Mountains; stay at The Beez’ tiny house in Katoomba; see the sights
  • 28 Mar 8am Lawson parkrun
  • 29 Mar 11am – support worker Catherine to meet us in Katoomba; 2pm Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb – Bob & Janey; then Janey to airport
• 30 March – travel Blue Mountains to Canberra
• 31 March – 7 April – Canberra; camping booked at EPIC (showgrounds)
  • 31 March – 2 April – Canberra sight-seeing
  • 2-6 April – National Folk Festival
  • 4 Apr 8am – Parkrun – location to be decided
• 7-10 April – return to Vic, to Bacchus Marsh
• 10-13 April – Turramurra Folk Music Camp
  • 11 April – Bacchus Marsh – Peppertree parkrun
  • 13 April – Return home

The Reality

The reality included:

• dramas getting our hands on a walker wheelchair we had purchased,
• a broken caravan,
• a rental campervan,
• a stroke,
• an unusual accommodation proposal,
• parkrun in Brunswick, in the rain
• driving to Canberra without a clear plan of where we would stay,
• another stroke,
• a new used caravan,
• hasty caravan modifications to make it accessible for Antigone,
• a lovely bike ride on the Great Victorian Rail Trail near Tallarook

It was not a boring tour.

Dramas getting our walker wheelchair

We recently purchased a Rollz Walker Wheelchair – an upgrade from the cheap Aldi wheelchair we’ve been using since 2023.  We were promised delivery of a red ‘Performance’ model by Tuesday 17 March, in plenty of time to take with us on our tour.  It did not arrive, and the seller advised they could not provide a red one as promised.  We needed it for our tour, so we agreed to settle for a green one.  They said if it did not arrive by 10 am on Friday 20 March, they would loan us one for our tour.  Our new one did not arrive so we organised an Uber to pick up the loan chair.  While it was on its way, we got a call that our new chair had arrived at the seller’s warehouse in East Keilor.  At about noon, we left for our trip, taking the loan walker wheelchair with us to East Keilor to swap for our one.

First we got lost; the warehouse was near the Keilor Park Drive Exit from the Ring Road Freeway, not near the Keilor Road Exit from the Calder Freeway as advised.  An extra 30 minutes or so navigating the roundabouts and speed humps of Keilor got me very frustrated.  We wanted to have plenty of time to set up camp in Beechworth before going to Yackandandah for the 7:30 Beez gig.

With the caravan behind the car, driving into the warehouse carpark and getting out again would have been difficult, so I decided to park on the nature strip.  For some reason the caravan would not come up the kerb onto the nature strip.  It felt suddenly much heavier, and the car’s driving wheels were spinning on the grass.

Broken Caravan

Getting out to investigate, I saw that the left side caravan wheel was no longer in the wheel arch – it was about 10cm further back.  The leaf spring had detached from the chassis and wheel and axle were connected to the drawbar by the brake cable only – no wonder the brakes were applied so strongly!

The woman at the warehouse was surprised I was not more upset by the broken caravan.  I was not pleased that our caravan had broken, but I was pleased it had broken without death or destruction.  A very low speed on a quiet street near home was so much better than other possible scenarios such as at high speed on a freeway, or anywhere far from home.

What to do now?

I rang RACV – towing of the caravan was not covered by our membership.  I rang an independent tow company which quoted a price and promised a tow truck within 2 hours.

I offered lunch; Janey was surprised and impressed when I emerged from the caravan 5 minutes later with a hot meal – rissotto from the previous night reheated on the caravan stove.

Preparing for the tow truck, I used ropes to connect the leaf springs left side to the drawbar, and I eased off the brake cable so the caravan would move.

But what about our tour?  I researched rental campervans.  Several thousand dollars for four weeks.  Not attractive to me.

I checked with our caravan insurance company.  Our insurance cover would cover the tow, and some for a replacement caravan, but not enough for a rental campervan for 4 weeks.

We had spent money on bookings for our tour – festival tickets, camping fees, Janey’s flight back from Sydney, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb for Janey and me.  I didn’t want to waste that.  Nor did I want to spend thousands on a rental van.  Yackandandah Festival was the most immediate goal, so I rented a small Jucy campervan for the weekend.

The tow truck did not arrive within the promised 2 hours.  We wouldn’t get towed home in time to get to the Jucy office before closure at 6, so Janey took an Uber to pick up the van while I assisted loading the tow truck, then unloading at home. 

The tow truck driver ignored my suggestion of attaching his cables to the caravan axle, and he didn’t tie down the left side wheel; during the tow the brake cable tightened further and he was unable to lower the caravan off his truck.  To get it off the tow-truck, I had to completely detach the brake cable.

I received a message from a concerned neighbour asking did I know our caravan was being towed away.

Rental Campervan for Yackandandah Folk Festival

Janey arrived home with the Jucy van. We hurriedly unpacked our van and repacked the rental van for the weekend.  We left home for the second time at about 8pm, arrived at our Beechworth Caravan Park at about midnight and got to sleep about 1am!

We woke at 7:25am.  Antigone was keen to go to parkrun despite the short night.  We jumped into the van and headed straight to Yackandandah, arriving about 5 minutes after the 8am event had started.  Despite our late start, we had a nice time, though we missed our running wheelchair; the new walker wheelchair has a pretty low speed tolerance before developing speed wobbles.

Being in a campervan, we had everything with us, so we had a picnic breakfast on the side of the road immediately following parkrun.

Yackandandah Folk Festival was great.  Our friends Mark and Julia Silver were impressive – active grandparents at the festival despite having just arrived back in Australia from Israel the previous day. 

Yackandandah is a very attractive historical town.  On Sunday afternoon after the festival ended, we decided to walk up and down the main street before heading back to our camp.  We didn’t get far though.  Antigone had much more difficulty walking than usual.  Then I noticed she was leaning to the right. 

A stroke

Bummer, another stroke.  We took her to the Wangaratta Hospital Emergency Department where she spent the night. 

Janey and I slept at our camp at Beechworth, and packed it all up early Monday morning.  At Wangaratta Hospital, Antigone’s symptoms had resolved so there was no need to stay longer.  As usual, the hospital took ages organising her discharge – we left at about 2pm and were once again under time pressure to get to the Jucy office in Melbourne by 6pm, this time to return our rental van.

We did not have time to unpack at home.  We arrived just before closing, with a van of gear hastily packed and not well organised.  Then our Uber van arrived to take us home.  All our camping things were basically thrown in a heap from the Jucy van into the Uber van with no organisation at all.  What a mess!

Back home – a chance to breathe, and some planning to do

Back home we relaxed, but our things were in disarray, both from the hasty Friday night repack from our broken caravan into the Jucy rental van, and worsened by the hasty transfer to the Uber van.

We’d had a good weekend, but we still had no ongoing plan for the rest of our tour.

Research:

• Caravan insurance policy and claim
• Caravan repairers
• Likely outcome of an insurance claim – our caravan may be written off – i.e. a payout
• Or did I want to spend time and energy trying to organise repairs?  No, I decided – too much life to be lived with Antigone.
• But what about our tour?
• If our caravan is written off, what will we do?
• In Canberra, where would we stay for the National Folk Festival?  Staying off site would make for a quite different festival experience and our bed would not be nearby for if naps were needed.
• Rental caravans – camplify.com.au

Driving up the kerb was obviously the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’.  I remembered the pothole we hit after Rosewood Camp in September, the last time we used our caravan.  That may have done much of the damage.  I filed an insurance claim.  Their process required me to identify a repairer and get a quote.  In the past I have found it difficult to find caravan companies interested in working on our caravan because it needs an unusual range of skills.  Anyway, I found a company who could quote from photos (taking a week or so) and they said the insurance company would take a further 5-6 weeks.  There was no getting an insurance company resolution prior to continuing our tour.  The repair guy I spoke to said our insurer tends to write vehicles off if the repair cost is 60% or more of the insured value.  When I told him about the problem and the insured value, he said he expected it would be written off.

With my current carer responsibilities, I didn’t want to spend a huge amount of time on caravan repairs myself.  So maybe it was time to get another caravan.  We love our VW Golf, and are not keen to replace it.  We are not interested in off-road driving.  So our parameters were an on-road caravan with a tow-ball weight not more than 75kg and a gross mass not more than 1500kg.  Initially, we were keen to upgrade to one with a toilet and shower if possible.

There are a dozen or so models available, most with toilets and showers.  We drove up to Campbellfield to look at an Ezytrail Winton 10 Caravan.  The Mark 1 had very little storage.  The Mark 2 was much better.  However, Antigone faced challenges getting into both caravans.  Also, the raised thresholds between the dry areas and wet areas were difficult to negotiate.  The Mark 2 had a squarer shape which would have more wind resistance towing but allowed for high storage cabinets.  It also cost a lot more.  Janey thought shower assistance would be easier in the Mark 1.

A useful visit.  Discovering the difficulty with raised thresholds changed our priorities about internal showers.  We’ve been getting by fine with a commode, and I could easily build a commode into any caravan, as I had in ours.

On the way home from Ezytrail, we stopped at Avan and I looked at some of their vans.  Unfortunately Antigone did not feel like getting out of the car to consider Avans.  She was still getting over a stroke a couple of days before.

After deciding against a shower/wet area, Avans became very attractive.  They would be pleasanter to tow than a high van.   I looked on a couple of websites advertising used caravans and found several.  As it happened, two of interest were in Canberra.

An unusual accommodation proposal

We didn’t yet know if Antigone would be capable of caravanning.  This made shopping for a replacement caravan difficult.  Ideally, we would try before buying.

The National Folk Festival takes place at EPIC – Canberra’s showgrounds.

I found a place near EPIC where the three of us could stay for $200-300 per night – About $2000 for a week! 

I researched rental caravans through camplify.  These were less expensive accommodation, but the two I contacted both already had planned usage over the Easter period.  I realised that a last-minute caravan rental was unlikely to be possible over the Easter/school holiday period. 

Then I thought of people with caravans to sell.  These likely would not be planned for use over Easter.  To the seller with the Avan I thought we would most likely buy, I put the following proposal:

I propose that we pay $1000 deposit towards the purchase of the caravan.  Because Antigone had a stroke a week ago, we are not sure if she’ll be able to continue with caravanning.  I propose that we stay in the caravan over Easter at EPIC.  If caravanning continues to work for us, we’ll settle the sale after Easter.  If it turns out we are beyond caravanning, we’ll return the caravan and clean it.  You will have $1000 from us and a caravan to sell.

I received a lovely generous response:

Bob – Your proposal is acceptable. Sorry that your wife had a stroke. We could leave the Avan in our driveway. We can provide bedding,  power and water. You can use our bathroom and facilities. EPIC is 10 km from our place. If the caravan sells, you are welcome to stay in our home. Regards, John and Helen Miller

Great.  We had kind of a plan for accommodation in Canberra.

In order to photograph our current caravan for the insurance quote, I needed to empty it.  I decided to weigh everything as I emptied it.  An interesting exercise to see how much everything weighs.

When I visited the Avan showroom, the chap there explained that the showroom was empty because the sales staff were at Albury/Wodonga at the Caravan show.  I looked up the caravan show and decided we could visit it on our way to Canberra. 

Packing for Canberra was a challenge.  We didn’t have our normal spacious caravan and we didn’t know what our accommodation would be, or whether we would return with a caravan.  Furthermore, I forgot that Catherine was flying home from Canberra, and I was packing to leave room for a third person and her gear in the car.

On Saturday 28 March we attended our regular parkrun in Brunswick with Janey, travelling as usual towing our running wheelchair behind our bike.

As usual, I ran at my speed and after finishing I joined Antigone and Janey.  Because of the rain, I thought they might like to stop early, so I got our bike and cycled to meet them.  I was wrong.  Antigone was keen to continue to the finish despite the rain!

On the road again

After hot showers, we farewelled Janey and headed north.  We stayed in Wodonga at a motel and got to experience Wodonga’s informal vintage and collectible car show.  Many of the vehicle watchers were intrigued by our side-by-side bike, which we rode into town for dinner to avoid the incredibly slow-moving traffic due to the vehicle show.

Breakfast with Antigone was a struggle.  It took ages and she had difficulty with her tablets.  She was very sleepy, so she slept in the car while I looked around the caravan show for caravans small enough for storing in our driveway and towing behind our VW Golf.  I saw just three – the EzyTrail Winton 10 we had already looked at in Melbourne, the Avans – Aliner or Sportliner, and the Jayco Wren or Penguin.  Avans seemed much superior to the Jaycos in their ease of setup and pack-down.  Also, they had lower floors, so were easier for Antigone to get in and out of.

Out of interest, I also looked at a couple of ‘Toy Hauler’ caravans.  These have a rear ramp and a rear area which includes bunks, which can fold out of the way for transporting ‘toys’ such as trail bikes.  A rear ramp could assist accessibility for wheelchairs.  Such vehicles could also transport our ‘toys’ – like our bike (instead of on the car roof) and our running wheelchair.  Being all over 19 feet long, these were all much too big for our tow-vehicle, but nevertheless, the concept was of interest.

The Avans seemed good.  I told a salesperson at the Jayco stand what I was considering and invited her to tell why I should get a Jayco rather than and Avan.  She quickly explained the Jayco advantages – being able to stand everywhere inside, and ease of setting up.  I asked for a demonstration of Jayco setup and pack-down.  That salesperson had obviously never used an Avan; the setup and pack-down were much more time-consuming than the Avan, and more muscle for winding too. 

After assessing that the Avan was the only option for us at the show, I brought Antigone in to see them.  Her mobility was very limited and it was a struggle to assist her into the vans. The Sportliner was too small but the Aliner seemed about right.  The show visit reinforced the correctness of an Avan as the choice for us. 

We continued on to Canberra.

We had seen ads for three Avans in the Canberra area which were potentially of interest. 

• Ben’s (the oldest and cheapest), in Yass Valley had had a recent funky paint job and Morroccan-style kitchen tiles that rather appealed, except for the knowledge that a recent paint-job in a used caravan could be for the purpose of hiding water damage.

• John and Helen’s, where we had been offered hospitality – I was somewhat concerned about a few things they had said, including that it was unregistered.  On the plus side, it had an annex and air-conditioning, two things we were looking for.  Also, it was a 1D layout which has a double bed with struts under it to lift easily, providing readily accessible storage.  (In contrast, other layouts have convertible beds and accessing storage requires moving cushions and opening fiddly plywood hatches.)

• Len’s (the most expensive of the three), appeared to be in the best condition due to having been garaged throughout its life.  It had Victorian registration and an annex, but was not our preferred 1D layout. 

Ben, with the funky one, said he had somebody coming before us, so it may well have sold.  He didn’t call me back. I decided to look at Len’s prior to going to John and Helen’s place.  The van was in very good condition, hadn’t been used since covid, and was being sold due to Len’s declining health.  Like at the caravan show, getting Antigone in and out was very challenging.  Len showed me how to set it up and pack it down, including attaching the annex.  Antigone was inside with his wife while I was outside with Len.  They were a lovely couple and seemed rather disappointed when I said I had another Avan to look at. 

When we arrived at John and Helen’s, where we planned to stay in their Avan in their driveway, it was approaching dark.  We would have plenty of time to look at the caravan the next day.  John and Helen were also a lovely couple needing to stop caravanning for health reasons. They clearly loved their caravan and grieved needing to sell it. They had set up a bed for us inside their house.  As Antigone’s mobility was so limited, we decided to spend Sunday night in the house. During the night, I realised Antigone had had another stroke; I rose early and planned for another hospital visit.