From hiring to buying, one couple shares how test-driving different motorhomes helped them find the perfect RV for their Australian adventures.
A dream to circumnavigate Australia in a yacht is what led my husband, Tim Jones, and me to purchase a motorhome.
As we live in south-west Western Australia, Tim’s idea was to sail out of our nearest port, Bunbury, turn right and keep sailing around Australia in a clockwise direction, continuing to turn right until we reached home. The main issue with this dream was that I get seasick, so spending months on end at sea had zero appeal for me. Over time, a compromise was struck – to buy a motorhome at some point in the future.
Tim began spending many hours looking online at motorhomes for sale, much like he used to do with yachts, despite having no real intent or fixed timeframe to make such a big purchase. It was something we had in mind to do when we neared retirement – or so we thought.
Then we decided to hire a motorhome as a trial to discover what we liked and didn’t like.
Step One: Try Before You Buy
Our first venture into discovering the joys of motorhome holidays occurred in September 2018, when we hired a six-berth Apollo motorhome for 10 days to travel around the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand.
It’s not clear why we needed a six-berth motorhome for just the two of us, but Tim made the booking and that’s what we picked up in Auckland. We had plenty of space, a bathroom with a shower and separate toilet, plus heating and cooling depending on the weather.
Our travels led us to the central east coast initially, visiting Tauranga and Mount Maunganui, before continuing to Rotorua and Taupō. Along the way, we stopped at the Craters of the Moon Geothermal Walk and enjoyed a night of free camping at Lake Taupō.
We then spent three days based at Whakapapa Holiday Park so we could enjoy a range of outdoor activities, including a day at New Zealand’s largest ski field.
The highlight of the holiday was hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in winter. The trek required guides, helmets, crampons and an ice pick for the nine-hour, 20-kilometre one-way hike. It was certainly "long, cold and challenging" – exactly as the Department of Conservation brochure promised – but the breathtaking scenery and conditions gave us a newfound appreciation for the endurance of early polar explorers.
Back on the road, we drove south towards Napier, taking a circular route through the Hawke's Bay region to Gisborne and Whakatāne before returning to Auckland to hand back our hired motorhome and fly home to Western Australia.
Step Two: Comparing Campers
In July 2021, we hired another Apollo motorhome. This time, I insisted on something smaller, so Tim booked a Mercedes Sprinter campervan with "all the essentials for two adults". It featured a rear dinette that converted into a snug double bed and a compact bathroom with a shower above the toilet. We hired the campervan for a week to explore Western Australia's PUBLIC Silo Trail, a collection of murals painted on grain silos in Northam, Ravensthorpe, Merredin, Albany, Newdegate and Pingrup, as well as public walls and transformer boxes throughout Katanning.
We began in Northam, travelled east to Merredin, took a slight detour to visit Hyden's famous Wave Rock, then continued to Newdegate and Pingrup before heading south to Albany. From Albany, we travelled to Katanning to see its five murals and seven Western Power transformer boxes painted during a seven-day public art project in 2017. We didn't venture east to Ravensthorpe, having visited those silos the previous year during a road trip in Tim's new GT Mustang as soon as COVID-19 quarantine restrictions allowed.
Our silo trail adventure included a mix of free camps and caravan parks, and we quickly realised we disliked converting the dinette into a bed every night. By the third day, the bed simply stayed made all day, leaving just enough room for us to perch on either side while using the parallel benchtops as a makeshift dining table. As we drove back to Apollo's Perth depot, we discussed both hire experiences and developed a list of non-negotiables for our future motorhome.
These included:
- Enough standing room for Tim (who is 6ft 1) without bending or hitting his head.
- A permanent island bed for easier bed-making.
- A separate shower and toilet.
We also agreed we didn't want something as large as the six-berth motorhome we hired in New Zealand, but the Mercedes Sprinter was simply too small, particularly as our two medium-sized dogs would usually travel with us.
Step Three: Decision Time
After hiring two very different motorhomes and learning exactly what suited us, we found ourselves with a free afternoon in Perth in August 2021 and decided to "kick some tyres" at a few RV dealerships. A word of advice for first-time buyers: don't go looking at cars, houses, furniture or motorhomes when you have money sitting in the bank!
One of the dealerships we visited was Rockingham RV Centre. While it mainly sold new and used caravans, it also had several campervans and motorhomes on consignment. There we found three motorhomes. One was too small, one was too old and one was almost perfect. The 2018 Auto-Trail Tracker FB (French Bed) was three years old and had travelled just 27,780 kilometres. Its previous two owners had barely used it, so it felt much like buying a demonstration model.
Having previously hired two Apollo vehicles, we were impressed by the Auto-Trail's quality fit-out and clever use of space. Tim could walk around comfortably without bumping his head, while the shower and toilet were separate and surprisingly spacious. The only compromise was that it featured a French bed rather than our preferred island bed.
We went away to think it over and compared it with the brand-new motorhomes we had inspected that day. Once we weighed up the purchase price, features and quality of finish, it became difficult to find a compelling reason not to buy the Auto-Trail. A few days later, Tim returned to Rockingham RV Centre with a mechanic friend, who inspected the vehicle and accompanied him on a test drive. His verdict was simple – it was a good buy.
We negotiated a fair price and said goodbye to our motorhome hiring days. Our new-to-us motorhome was named Tikiti Bu because, when we travel in our home on wheels, life is indeed "tickety-boo". We've now owned Tikiti for almost five years. As we're both still working full-time, most of our adventures are weekend getaways, along with one or two longer trips each year.
Our longest journey so far was a six-week adventure from Western Australia to Tasmania and back during the summer of 2024–25. We travelled 10,483 kilometres with our two dogs and crossed Bass Strait twice aboard the Spirit of Tasmania. Today, Tikiti's odometer sits at 71,370 kilometres. We hope she has many more adventures ahead as we look forward to the day we can leave Bunbury, turn right onto Highway One and finally complete our dream of driving clockwise around Australia.
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