Hope this post is in the right forum - toss up between Hints and Tips, Techies or here Hopefully picking up the van this week and was wondering if any good places to practice reversing and so on aound Perth, preferably near Bayswater.I initially though of shopping centre car parks on Sundays but now there is 7 day shopping not such a good option. Anyone have any ideas?. Maybe a good idea to list places for the other state capitals as well.
What about Bayswaters light industrial area wouldn,t be much activity on a sunday and most business premises would have off street parking with marked bays to practise on.
Trouble with my driveway is that it is very narrow (2.5m and a 2.4m Caravan - although I am working on that!) Also neighbours have about 8 cars so usually some in road and on our verge
JRG wrote:
What about Bayswaters light industrial area wouldn,t be much activity on a sunday and most business premises would have off street parking with marked bays to practise on.
Thats a good idea
-- Edited by Cadpete on Monday 12th of January 2015 03:34:56 PM
When I needed a good area t teach my Granddaughter to reverse took Her down to the local boat ramp. Mid week there is only a small number of the spaces of the 100 plus being used. Guess it would be a fair drive to a boat ramp for You though?
When I needed a good area t teach my Granddaughter to reverse took Her down to the local boat ramp. Mid week there is only a small number of the spaces of the 100 plus being used. Guess it would be a fair drive to a boat ramp for You though?
Mike.
Another good thought there explorer - there is a boat ramp in Bayswater about 10 minutes away from home , but I was talking about Sunday - so maybe not
what about advent park on kalamungra rd, just off the roe. They charge $3 a day to store vans and have a large area before you enter the park, it grass. If you spoke to Glen and offered him a tenner or something maybe he would let you use that area, also an exelent place to store a van
cheers
blaze
We are up near Seabird... bit further out than you asked..but you are more than welcome to bring your van up here for a weekend (or whatever days suit you). Not sure if you are new to caravanning but this will give you three activities... staying in your van and seeing how everything works, towing thru traffic and on country roads (well IOD is hardly a country road anymore..you can learn to dodge the roos on our access road!!) and you can practice parking/reversing all you like. A few tomato stakes and a bit of surveyors tape and you have a fence/wall (and if you hit it no damage!!). Mark out a "caravan park site" on the ground with a bit of line marking paint and back away to your hearts content and not 100 people lining up to watch (and help??) you back in!! Anyway something to think about. Oh we are away till the 23rd so anytime after that.
Edited to add...Forgot to say we have a couple of acres of flat ground so plenty of room
-- Edited by sufil on Tuesday 13th of January 2015 10:31:54 AM
We are up near Seabird... bit further out than you asked..but you are more than welcome to bring your van up here for a weekend (or whatever days suit you). Not sure if you are new to caravanning but this will give you three activities... staying in your van and seeing how everything works, towing thru traffic and on country roads (well IOD is hardly a country road anymore..you can learn to dodge the roos on our access road!!) and you can practice parking/reversing all you like. A few tomato stakes and a bit of surveyors tape and you have a fence/wall (and if you hit it no damage!!). Mark out a "caravan park site" on the ground with a bit of line marking paint and back away to your hearts content and not 100 people lining up to watch (and help??) you back in!! Anyway something to think about. Oh we are away till the 23rd so anytime after that.
Edited to add...Forgot to say we have a couple of acres of flat ground so plenty of room
-- Edited by sufil on Tuesday 13th of January 2015 10:31:54 AM
Many thanks for that offer Sufil, I will pass it on to SWMBO. Yes we are totally new to caravanning but have the additional 'problem' of I work week days while Marion works Sundays - Oh Our daughter also needs to be run into work for midnight Fridays. We will certainly take you up on it but will PM you to sort out dates etc.
Well had an interesting afternoon with Eddie from the Global Gypsy's for our caravan towing lesson. Went to the local railway station car park for reversing lessons and fairly quickly got the basic hang of it, just needs practice, practice, practice. We than got back home and Eddie helped to guide us into our own driveway (around 2.8m wide with brick posts either side, powerpole on verge close to crossover - I'm sure you get the idea ) If I hadn't taken the gates and pintles off earlier we couldn't have got in.
Took just over half an hour to get the van in, including having to unhitch and then re-hitch to be able to straighten the car up for the final push. Around 150mm clearance either side maximum. At the end of that my nerves were shot :) NOT looking forward to taking the caravan out again. I have a gopher motor in my garage and may see about trying to turn that into a caravan tug as they are waay too expensive for us to get at the moment.
As a point of interest Eddie also had a look at my Mother-in-Laws driveway (our plan B option) and thought ours would be the easier!