Hi everyone, just joined to be able to ask questions.  I'm hopefully buying a caravan (inspection scheduled for next week) and I'm a total noob.  The forum has come up when searching for information, hopefully the knowledgeable will be able to help me out with specific information I can't find online.  

I'm in the west and we have been very lucky to have the freedom to move about, relatively normally.  I felt I should go somewhere to help out our rural tourism businesses and I'd had a "bucket list" want to go up there so I went up north to exmouth.  The huge difference in price between caravan park camping fees and paying for a room ($200 vs $30/n) made me decide to camp in a tent (it's a long way, too far not to stay a reasonable number of days to make the drive worth it).  It was comfortable enough, but very windy so I didn't fire up the camping stove I took with me, and I'm a bit decrepit and get very tired so putting the tent and bits and pieces up for just one night would be impracticable, hence thinking a van would be good to make short trips somewhere.  I have a menagerie, but I can save money on kennels if I take my dogs with me.  I took them with me last week down to Mandurah for a couple of nights, we stayed in the tent and they did very well. It is a bit restrictive having them always there, but it was also a good incentive to give them plenty of activity (and consequent increase on my own). 

There's a lot to learn and the forum has already been a good source of information. 

cheers