VOLKSWAGEN TYPE 2
RUN BY Aaron McKay OWNED SINCE 1996 PREVIOUS REPORT n/a
Much like it has been languishing on the Our classics list, the family Volkswagen Type 2 camper has been sitting quietly while life has flashed by. My parents bought it in 1996; my mum, in particular, had been looking for a Westfalia in a groovy colour, but my dad pointed out that this Dormobile – with a Sheldon high-top roof – looked too good to miss. It was, and we bought it. So began a childhood of holidays in the Lake District, the New Forest and, most years, the Three Counties Showground for Vanfest. The flowers were my mumʼs idea, as was the nickname ʻBeethovenʼ, after the 1983 rock band Camper Van Beethoven.
I was eight when various maps, notepads and countless Lonely Planet guidebooks suddenly began to litter our dining-room table, suggesting a journey beyond our usual English spots. Frustrated by a delayed house move, my parents had decided to ditch the chain, sell the house and take two years out to tour the world – with the van. Preparations comprised little more than a thorough service, front foglamps, a reversing spotlight and a bicycle rack at the rear.
In the early summer of 2000, Beethoven was loaded on to a container ship bound for Perth, Australia, while we followed by plane and backpack through Asia. Two months later, we were reunited. The first couple of thousand miles on the road were up and down the west coast, so by the time we ventured into the Outback, we had picked up a few additional bits of equipment, including my little canvas tent, in the Australian ʻswagʼ style, which rolled up to stow on the roof of the camper alongside the ʻsolar showerʼ (a bag with a hose). We marked up the map with notes about fuel, water and which of our rest stops had shade.
In Australiaʼs hot, dry centre, our sandwiches dried to crusts as we ate them, insects owned the atmosphere and dust invaded every corner of the van – even inside the cupboards. But the old, air-cooled bus soldiered on, through the Northern Territory, passing Darwin, Uluru and the stunning scenery of countless national parks, needing little more than the timing reset and dust cleared out of the air filter.
As weeks of corrugated dirt roads turned into months, the surround-sound vibrations faded into the background and only the odd passing car each day reminded us that there were other people out there. I even managed to steer a few miles myself, half-standing on the pedals from my dadʼs lap. Over the worst of the little tracks to hidden cam
