To The Manor Reborn

By timbowden On January 13, 2012 · Leave a Comment

TO THE MANOR REBORN

Caravan+RV June/July 10 Issue

Tim and Ros Bowden became absurdly fond of their Jayco Flight camper when they traded up from a split-window Kombi. It was immediately christened The Manor… AC+RV has reunited the Bowdens with their first love.

Here is Penelope and The Manor on our very first outing in 2007

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Penelope is the name of our splendid Series 80 Landcruiser, named after the actress Penelope Keith , who starred in the BBC television series called… wait for it, To The Manor Born. It stands to reason our camper had to be called Penelope.

It was my first article in Caravan+RV magazine, ‘Taking the Waters’ on a visit to the historic Moree hot mineral springs in the August-September 2009 edition, that caused The Manor’s new owners to ask the editor to pass on my contact details.

I was delighted to hear from Matt and Lorie Watson at Coffs Harbour. Ros and I had last seen our venerable Jayco Flight looking rather forlorn and worn in a Wyong caravan dealership, and wondered what had become of her. Matt emailed me a photo of the Watsons and their little boy Zac, sitting proudly in front of a splendidly revived and very smart Manor.

Lorie, Matt and little Zac Watson with their newly purchased Manor

They had been on the lookout for a small but robust camper and the salesman in Wyong had mentioned that Ros and I were the previous owners. The Watsons even tracked down the first travel book I wrote on eBay, Penelope Goes West – On the Road from Sydney to Margaret River and Back, published in 1999, as they wanted to know more about where The Manor had been.

(Penelope as the name for our Series 80 Toyota Landcruiser, was first suggested by David Carrick, from Sydney Jayco, who sold her to us. He was onto the connection like a flash when Ros first said she wanted to call our then new camper The Manor because it was so luxurious compared to our former Kombi. I was horrified and said, ‘You can’t call a 4WD Penelope. People will laugh and point. What about my hairy-chested, macho outback image?’ ‘You haven’t got one’, my beloved replied in her inimitable way and that was that.)

The Manor almost didn’t make it to Western Australia, and nearly wrote us off with it about one hour out of Sydney heading south on the Hume Highway. You muck about with an established design at your peril, and I had taken advice from someone who said that you really should have the same sized wheels on your camper as your 4WD when going outback. The Toyota had 16 inch split rimmed wheels and tyres with tubes, and they only just fitted in the wheel cavities of The Manor. In the spare wheel was so much bigger than the original wheels that we couldn’t fit it between the rear bumper and the body of the camper, so had to hang it off the outside of the back bumper bar.

Unbeknown to me, that made us dangerously nose-light, and when I pulled out to pass a semi-trailer not far past Cambeltown on the Hume Highway, The Manor unexpectedly started to do a merry dance and I nearly had a heart attack. I put on the anchors and managed to abort the ill-advised passing manoeuvre and pulled over to the verge and stop, still palpitating. I disconnected the camper and found that I could hold the draw bar up with one hand, without needing the jogger wheel!

What do do? Driving slowly and cautiously we pulled off at a servo and made a few phone calls. There was a Jayco dealership in Canberra who said they could help us. I am still grateful. The way it was explained to me, it was like a fat kid and a skinny kid on a see-saw. The skinny kid doesn’t have to move back very far to counter-balance the circumferentially-challenged kid on the other end. By hanging the spare over the back of the bumper bar, I had unwittingly made The Manor dangerously nose light, which had her dancing about like Rudolph Nureyev on steroids.

The Canberra Jayco people moved the front mounted gas bottle holders further forward and rigged up a bracket for the spare tyre just behind them. Problem solved, but not quite because I had stupidly left the mechanical handbrake on The Manor after I had my panic stop, and wondered why she seemed heavier than usual for the rest of the trip to Canberra. Wreathes of smoke were coiling out of very hot, worn brake pads and replacements were urgently needed. It wasn’t a great start to our Western Australian odyssey, but the good news was we were still alive, and things got better from then on.

We make it to the Bungle Bungles on our second expedition to the West.

Well over the next eight years we certainly gave both Penelope and The Manor a good workout, with another trip to Western Australia in 2000 via Alice Springs and the Tanami Track (Penelope Bungles to Broome). We even towed The Manor into the Bungle Bungles where you are not advised to take trailers. There were several steep and quite deep creek crossings. I recall seeing a bearded head-banging 4WD off-road type with extra rusted towing wire wound around the bull bar of his battered early model Toyota, waiting for me to grind my way up to the top of the rise where we could pass.

We must have looked like the ultimate city slickers. As we drove past I thanked him for waiting, and he looked at The Manor contemptuously and said: ‘Geez mate you’re game bringing that bloody thing in here.’ He should have said ‘mad’, actually. But we got away with it and were extremely comfortable when we got there I have to say. It was probably our most adventurous outback effort towing The Manor.

In 2004 we headed down to my home state of Tasmania to write The Devil in Tim – Penelope’s Travels in Tasmania. Then what turned out to be The Manor’s last hurrah in 2005, a big trip up the East Coast to Cairns and the Daintree, across the Atherton Tablelands to the Gulf Country and up to Darwin via Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. Our old friend Ted Egan was then the Administrator in Darwin, and we were invited to stay in some style in the Queens Bedroom at Government House. The appalled staff quickly bundled a red-dust stained Manor out of sight into a garage within seconds of our arrival. Penelope wasn’t a diplomatic problem, as His Honour the Administrator had a similar white Series 80 Landcruiser himself.

Lovely camp site at The Devil’s Marbles in the Northern Territory

We returned to New South Wales via the Stuart Highway and the Oodnadatta Track through William Creek and Maree, writing our fourth (and last) Penelope and The Manor book, Down Under in the Top End – Penelope Heads North.

We had bought The Manor in 1997 for around $14 000 plus awning, bed flies and an annexe which we zipped in once to see how it worked and never used again. The Jayco Flight certainly held its value. I was surprised to hear that Matt paid $11 400 for our well-worn Manor in February 2007. It was just as well that Matt’s job was a caravan repairer with ABCO Caravans in Coffs Harbour, because much work needed to be done.

The Manor’s renonvations well under way.

The real surprises didn’t show up until he began the renovation. ‘The suspension was shot, and shot bad,’ he told me. ‘The offside spring had its centre bolt snapped out and it was missing a leaf so that the van crabbed badly and was sagging on that side’.

‘The floor was badly peppered with stone damage, there was no protective coating left on the drawbar and the rear hangers on the back end of the springs were nearly non-existent.’

The ply board front of the Flight was covered with a padded green vinyl stone guard, and Matt soon discovered that water had seeped in and rotted the woodwork behind it. This was easily fixed with smart-looking and durable metal Checker Plate.

The Watsons letting it all hang out at a New South Wales coastal camping ground.

The renovations have been going on steadily when Matt can get some time from his job. The electrics have had a makeover, with more 12 volt lighting inside and out, and a 12v pump and flick mixer tap to replace our old hand operated and rather leaky hand pump to the sink. One classy addition has been an external shower and a gas hot water service attached to the rear bumper. (Must remind Matt to check on his ball weight!)

The Bowdens used to say that the modest proportions of the Flight in towing mode used to open out like Dr Who’s Tardis when the roof was raised and the beds pulled out. Matt and Lorie have added to this illusion with a quicker to put up Fiamma bag awning on the near side of the camper, and the old awning relocated to the offside, so The Manor in full camping mode now looks as though it has wings.

Matt and his mate at Abco, Andrew, have been working on the Flight for nearly three years now, and the job is nearly done, with only the canvas left to finish. ‘There are small tears in the flyscreens, but the main canvas is in quite good condition.’

‘We continue to brag about her past and there was no way we were going to change the name. I always feel sad when I sell a car I have had for a long time, and Lorie and I wanted to tell you that The Manor was being cared for, loved and well used with lots of fun yet to be had.’

Ros and I say ‘Amen’ to that, and The Manor certainly came in for a soft landing. We hope to hear more about the Watsons’ camping adventures in the years ahead.