Our old Mercedes school bus is now converted to a motorhome!

I did say that we expected to be finished in July. But we weren't.

In early October we finished building the motorhome which we have decided to call 'Blu'. The name fits as the last RV (which travelled North and South America and quite a bit of Europe) I called 'Blac', and this one, as well as being half blue, is our Australian motorhome: Australian things are often described as 'true blue'.

The bus we chose for this conversion was previously a school bus. H very much chose the vehicle and to convert it (I've always said I'm happy if the wheels are going around, it doesn't much matter to me what wheels they are). The bus is a Mercedes Vario with the original bus build done by Denning in Brisbane. H chose it because the shell is fibreglass, it's Mercedes, it's older and diesel, and most of all, it has 2 metres of head height inside.

See my photo's for some before and after pictures. I know: I need to put up a photo of the finished interior, but it seems I don't yet have one. I'll put it up next post.

This is the Mercedes Vario Denning bus that we purchased to convert to a motorhome / RV.

Our home! It looks quite different to what we started with.

Here's the school bus interior before converting it to an RV

We are already on the road. First we didn't go far away, we invited some friends to a nearby camping spot so that they could see our new home and we could have a 'test run'. The test run produced our first problem and we had to replace a belt on the air-conditioner, but aside from that all was good, and so now we're travelling again (and the air-con is working).

I'll post again soon with some more pictures. Please post any questions you might have.

Inside of Blac, part 2

The remainder of the photos of the inside of our motorhome, Blac.

5. Looking towards the front of the vehicle.  The fridge is on the left,  we covered it with a poster print collage of our wedding day and a drawing from my niece at the bottom. Clothes cupboard is beyond the fridge.

6. The toilet (I won't use American terminology as you clearly can't take a bath in there). It's a flushing Thetford toilet.  Waste goes into a sealed cassette,  it can be pulled out from a little door on the outside wall, and Hendrik empties it daily. On the right is our folding outdoor table.

7. The shower.  The toilet and shower are on opposite sides of the back door.

Blac can carry 150 litres of water.  We usually fill up the water at gas stations, but we can fill from rivers or lakes if need be.  The water is for everything: kitchen, drinking (run through the filter), toilet flush, and shower. 150 litres typically lasts us (2people) 3 days.  We rarely use public toilets.

Inside of Blac, part 1 (as much requested!)

Here are some much requested photos showing what the inside of Blac is like.  I'm doing this as 2 blog posts simply as it's easier for me to upload.

It's a tight space,  but enough,  but being tight is difficult to get good pictures.

1. Looking to the front,  that's the bed above the cab. Being able to enter the cab from the camper is a safety feature... if we need to move at night we can without even leaving the vehicle. 

On the right behind the passenger seat are the 2 folding chairs we take outside to sit in. 

2. Taken from the bed,  that's me sitting at the dining table.  We prefer to eat outside though. There is a bench seat on both sides. It's a squeeze,  but you can fit 2 bums on each bench.  But, as it's so tight, we never invite people inside for a cup of tea. 

3. Hendrik filling up a water bottle (from our tap that has the water filter installed) at the kitchen sink. 

There are cupboards above and below the Kitchen work bench. 

4. The kitchen from the back. H is a coffee addict, so there is an expresso machine. And the Black Box is the old Coleman 2 burner stove. We mostly take it outside to use. And, for fun, we have a wooden Toucan. 

How the Belgian built our camper, Blac

Since H doesn't write these blog posts,  and I wasn't around when he built Blac, I'm going to mostly let the following photos do the telling of this story.

There are few points to mention though:
H bought the old 1989 Mercedes G wagen from Germany,  the chassis was strong but the engine needed replacing.  He bought another engine,  an '82 model, from France.

He cut the top and back off the cabin and built the camper directly onto the chassis.

The large panels of the unit are recycled highway signs.  He glued the panels together with Sicaflex and fibreglass.
Inside he built the cupboards from lightweight poplar wood, with sliding doors so that they wouldn't come open while driving.
In a space of 2 metres by 5 metres we have a double bed, a dining area (with storage under the bench seats), a kitchen (with 2 burner stove*, sink, bar fridge,  and multiple cupboards), and a flushing toilet and shower (separate).
*H built the unit to completely run on diesel: for cooking and heating. But, one day the big fellow stood on the diesel cooker (to look out the top window at the roof) and broke the diesel cooker.  It was an expensive unit, but I was pleased it broke as the diesel cooker was horribly slow to use, and now we cook using premium unleaded fuel in an old Coleman stove.

Also,  I think it's worth mentioning,  we have a water filtration system installed.  This makes life easy for us,  we can fill up the tanks from any tap, anywhere, or even a stream, and this lightweight small system removes bacteria and heavy metals so that we can drink the water. The filters cartridge needs to be replaced annually, and we get new ones in Belgian or Australia when we visit. The company H got the system from, and the replacement cartridges from is: itdoesthejob.com

These photos aren't great, H only took them with a phone. 

What did the Belgian and the Aussie do before?

Usually once I've told people this much of our story they then ask me something to the effect of 'so what did you do before this?' or 'what was your profession?'

I generally know what they mean, but sometimes I question them to clarify what they are asking: "You mean, what did we do to afford this lifestyle at such a young age*?"

Firstly, I will say that this lifestyle isn't expensive. It's less expensive than an average lifestyle for us in our home countries: Australia and Belgium. But, I want to talk about the expense side in another blog post, so that's for later. 

So, what did I do before?

Well, I didn't have a profession and I didn't go to university. But I did work hard, save hard, and invest well. 

Very importantly, I was blessed with parents who encouraged me to skip university and buy a house. I bought my first house at age 18, about 20 months after finishing high school. It was incredibly cheap, and I'd worked 7 days a week, in various jobs, to save a deposit for it. 

Even at 16 I knew I wanted to have enough money to travel, so one day I went and talked to an old family friend who lived from the money made on his investment properties. I didn't take a lot away from the chat but it shows my interest. 

After I'd bought that house I painted it and did basic renovations and, after a year I rented it out. After a few more years I bought another, and then another, both with a partner, in each case we painted them and did basic, necessary, renovations before renting them out. 

I was very fortunate with my houses, they weren't expensive, but rental returns were good. House prices in the town where I bought them hadn't risen much in years and prices were cheap in comparison to other places. Then a mining boom hit and property values went up. 

One day I decided that, although I wasn't wealthy, I 'had enough' and that I should travel, since it is what I have always wanted to do. One day I might have to work again, but I'm confident that I can and will be able to. 

In fact, in my mid thirties, despite 'having enough', I went back to work just because I had failed, in my backpacking, to find a travel companion and thought that if I worked in the travel industry I might be satisfied. But I wasn't satisfied, and after almost 2 years I quit and went to India. 

Hendrik's story is different but similar. He too didn't go to university, but he did have a profession and made some good money in a short amount of time. But, more importantly, he also invested his money in a couple of run-down houses, renovated them (although, whereas I did most my own paintwork, he paid others for his work) and rented them out. 

One day he too decided he 'had enough' and decided to go travelling. 

The idea of 'having enough' is important to Hendrik and I so one day I hope to say a bit more about that. 

*Hendrik is 40, I'm 39.

How we live, on the road

As I have mentioned, H and I live in a small camper which is currently in South America. This doesn't mean we live in South America or Brazil or Argentina or any other place: we live wherever we are.

The camper is built, by H, onto a Mercedes G300 chassis. It's about 5 metres by 2 metres, and has a double bed, a dining area, a kitchen, cupboards, and a flushing toilet and a hot water shower. H built the sides of the camper by recycling old Belgian road signs. 

The camper left Belgium about 4 years ago, carrying H and his girlfriend (she travelled with him for 2 years before becoming the ex-girlfriend). They first left Europe with a ferry to Iceland, then shipped from Iceland to Newfoundland (Canada) and started driving from there. You have to ship again to get from North America to South America (there are no reliable roads through the Darien Gap). 

By the time I'd met Hendrik he'd been travelling 10 months on his own. I'll tell you how we met sometime soon.

Here's some on the road pictures, showing the vehicles front and back angles. I've started calling this camper Blac, because it's just black... inside and out!

On the road, again

Hendrik (H) and I (Ali) live in a small camper-van travelling the world. Currently the camper-van is parked in South America and we are in Australia. We came back to Australia because a few months back H got down on one knee and proposed to me. I was shocked! And after 2 weeks of thinking it over I said 'okay, but you have to meet my family first'.

H is from Belgian, and I, you may know, am from Australia. We've been in Australia almost 2 months now, which means that time is running out and we'll soon be heading back to our home on wheels in South America.

Tomorrow we start a drive to North Queensland. We have a month to get there and come back again. We've borrowed a piggy back camper from my dad and are headed to a friends birthday party. Google maps says it's 1788 kilometres from here to the party.

Most importantly, the wedding was 2 weeks ago.... so that's it. I spent years searching for a travel companion, and so did H, and now we're off the market.

In this blog I intend to tell you about us, how we met, and what we are doing. I hope you enjoy it!