Out of the dating wilderness and on a bucolic road to camping romance

The VW Caddy was my ticket to freedom. Now I’m selling my beloved van to make space for something bigger – we will need more than two seats to take our little fella on his first trip.

The little VW Caddy camper.

Six years ago I went on a date with a man. He lived a couple of hours north on the NSW Central Coast but was happy to meet near me in Sydney’s eastern suburbs because he travelled to the city every day for work. Much like the mashed potato that arrived with my sirloin, the conversation was lukewarm and limped along through the usual topics: work, family, house prices. But then he whipped out his phone and started showing me some pictures of where he liked to go camping.

Instead of sleeping on the ground, he would camp in a rather spectacular tent mounted on the back of his ute. This canopy had a ladder up the side and a storage area underneath where he kept a single-burner stove, water and other camping knick-knacks. Mesmerised, I started asking questions. How long did it take to set up? Was the mattress comfy? Did cooking out the back make all your clothes smell like bacon inside the tent? I needed to know how this all worked.

We didn’t end up meeting again as there was little connection between us, but I found myself preoccupied with that canopy and the idea of getting some type of campervan. There was something romantic about the idea of sleeping by the beach, pulling on my wetsuit in the dark and making a coffee out the back of the camper while I was still covered in salt. I resolved to stop looking for a man and start searching for a van.

An artist in Marrickville was selling a Volkswagen Caddy, a classic tradesman’s van, with a mattress in the back. The dash had been chipped when he was transporting one of his long steel sculptures but otherwise it was in perfect nick – and it had done only 70,000km. The sculptor and his partner were sad to let it go as it had taken them on many adventures. When I pulled back the sun visor a handful of feathers – white, brown and grey – tumbled out on to the passenger seat. These mementos from their travels meant one thing to me: freedom.

The first place I took the Caddy was on a solo trip to a beachside campground at Coledale in the Illawarra, just south of Sydney. It’s about as close as you can get to sleeping on the sand and offers a little grassy strip to camp on with access to a shower block and kitchen. That night I wrapped myself in a blanket, tucked my deckchair inside the Caddy’s barn doors and poured myself a glass of pinot. In the morning I made porridge with honey and dried fruit on the cooker before driving down the road for a surf at a spot called Sharkies. Now I was living!

A friend who liked to build things during his off weeks as a FIFO worker fitted out the van with timber panelling and sliding drawers. A company in Queensland made some bespoke magnetic fly screens that allowed me to open the side and rear doors on hot nights without being gnawed by mosquitoes.

I also dipped my toe back in the dating pool. One man actually laughed, hysterically, meanly, when I arrived in my Caddy. “Is that your car?” he exclaimed. I wouldn’t be needing to see him again.

The writer enjoying prawns and cider at Scotts Head.

But then I met a man who also loved my van. On our first camping trip we went back to Coledale and made bacon and egg rolls on brioche buns after a lazy dip in the ocean. He fitted one of the drawers with a spice rack and attached lights to the barn doors so we didn’t have to make tea in the dark.

During two weeks on the NSW mid-north coast we chased down our untethered camping gear in a December downpour, cooked pasta to an audience of attentive cows in a paddock and camped by the most idyllic creek on a farming property.

Now I’m selling my beloved van to make space for something bigger – we will need more than two seats to take our little fella, due in February, on his first camping trip.

When I first list the car on Facebook Marketplace my fiance takes one look at the price and laughs. “You really don’t want anyone to buy it, do you?”

Yes, it’s possible I have overcapitalised on this fine asset!

I drop the price but the ad still sits idle for three weeks before my phone pings with a message from a young woman. “Your van looks real­ly cool. I just split with my ex … he has a VW Transporter that he decked out and went camping in it a lot … would love something of my own to do some exploring!”

Bridget Cormack is the deputy editor of Review.