There Be Light.

Nice easy job today.  I wanted some lights above the spinny around front seats for reading at night.  I bought a couple of LED strips of ebay and wired them up to the 12V leisure batteries.

They have their own switches and can be turned to face the roof for some atmospheric mood lighting, if thats how you roll.  I stuck one over the drivers seat too.

Had the same fittings in the old van, did well so why change?

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The Maiden Voyage - May 2013

We had a chance to get away in Brian for the first time during the May Bank Holiday weekend. Our friends booked a campsite near Newent called Pelerine Camping for us and themselves in their tent.

We left around mid afternoon on the Friday and then spent four hours driving while the satnav diverted around accidents and traffic jams. We also had an unplanned stop in Evesham while I put the fridge door back on after it slung its contents and then itself onto the floor of the van as I enthusiastically negotiated a roundabout.

When we did get there setting up was quick and didn't disrupt our cocktail hour too much. The BBQ worked fine off the new external gas outlet and we roasted a chicken for dinner in it.

No picture of the chicken dinner but here's our cocktails.

We ended up sat in the van when we got too noisy to be outside it and four of us around the table was comfortable enough. Can't say I remember going to bed but I must have slept well as it was gone nine when I woke up. I gave the facility's a good work out and the shower and bog worked well.

Taking The Power Outside

When we're away we tend to do all the cooking outside on a BBQ and a small single ring electric hot plate.  So seeing as this van isn't as pretty as our old one and I wasn't too bothered about having things stuck on it's side I bought a few bits made by Bullfinch.

A Gas Outlet, an Electric Outlet and a Shower Outlet.  The first three in the picture below.

So last Saturday armed with a big hole cutter I did this.

This is what the walls are made of, a skin of aluminium sheet, polystyrene and the vinyl faced ply.

The outlets all ended up inside the cupboard under the sink where theres 240v, gas and hot/cold water.  Which was handy.

So this was what it ended up like.  Took all day with a lot of swearing while having my head and arms stuck in a cupboard while lying on my back.  Great fun.

Tech Spec (As far as we know?)

What have we bought?

Its full glorious title is a 2005 Dethleffs Premium Class Low Profile T5846 or Van Brian to us.

Theres not much info out there in webland but the dealer gave us a photocopy of a couple of pages out of the 2005 sales brochure.

New Wheels

We've had a VW T4 that I converted into a camper four years ago. We've had three big trips around Europe in it and enjoyed them all.  Heres a link to how we did it and where we went on a couple of our trips.

The only thing about the VW was it didn't have a bathroom so we were limited to stopping on campsites with toilet blocks. We like the idea of using the Aires and free overnight stopping places in Europe so it was decided something bigger was needed.
After a couple of weekends looking around motorhome dealers this weekend we found what we wanted.

• A low roof van, less than 6m long
• Fixed bed in the rear
• An L shaped lounge/dining area rather than just forward facing seats and captains chairs (better for sprawling on)
• Toilet with separate shower cubicle
• Blown air heating
• A garage for the BBQ and outdoor stuff
• German made
• Big engine 2.8 JTD
• Low mileage, 33k

It's a 2005 Dethleffs Premium Class T5846
I've had a dig around and there's not many about, found another for sale in Devon and one in Finland. When it was sold new only one dealer in the UK was importing them. They were more popular in Germany and the Nordic country's.  It has a high level of insulation which might account for Nordic sales.

A few more photos we took at the dealers below. We pick it up in two weeks.