People often ask why we chose an On The Move caravan, as there are so many vans to choose from these days. Most modern vans have great features and what appeals to one won’t necessarily appeal to the next person. Here is why our On The Move fitted our particular criteria…
OFFROAD SUSPENSION
Many manufacturers promote their vans as offroad but may not have the same standards. We have independent suspension, each wheel has two shock absorbers plus an airbag. The structure is built to withstand harsh conditions. We took ours along the Gibb River Road, a recognised test route, and it performed perfectly.
STYLE AND COMFORT
Our former van had individual leather recliners, so we asked for the same in our new On The Move. We enjoy the comforts of home and have lived and travelled in this particular van for more than two years, so it needs to be well finished and comfortable inside as well as out.
We asked for the features we wanted, and Lennie Mifsud of On The Move customised our Grenade Series 11 just for us. We have a bigger bed, more wardrobe space, a slide out pantry and a bigger bathroom.
INTERIOR SPACE
Despite our requests for all these features, as we are not small people we still have heaps of space inside, mainly because we have a slide-out in the kitchen section. This means we can have two people in the kitchen at once, as well as being able to stretch our legs when sitting in our recliners. Extra room in the bathroom provides space to dry ourselves and dress without banging our elbows on anything. It also houses the washing machine.
OFF-GRID CAPABILITY
We have four 150W solar panels on the roof with three deep-cycle batteries to store our power from the sun. As we usually travel towards the sun, this provides us with plenty of power if we are camping in the bush.
We have a 1000W inverter, so we can put that on to warm-up the electric blankets and make our coffee in the morning! Luxuries like these make all the difference when you are camped out and it gets a bit cold.
We also have a satellite dish on the roof, which finds its own position to give us television coverage wherever we are.
There are three 90L water tanks and a grey water tank so even national parks are open to us.
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
The structure of the van means we can literally go anywhere, while the interior gives us the luxury not always found in rugged vans. We have taken our OTM van, Mariah (they call the wind Mariah and we go where the wind takes us), right around Australia, through the magnificent Kimberley, central Australia and on roads you might not take with a standard van. These are the areas we wanted to experience, so we looked for a van to do them in, and found the On The Move met our requirements. We have excellent back-up from Lennie and the team, always ready to help over the phone with any issues.
It has been two and a half years since we bought our On The Move and we have travelled in it all of that time, except for six weeks in our new home. We are still very happy with our choice and plan to keep it for many years.
And it’s not only us — we have just returned from a gathering of our fellow owners, 80 in all, at Lightning Ridge, and it was great to hear how happy everyone was with their OTM caravans.
