Early in 2009 I was thinking about a ‘significant’ birthday later that year and started thinking about slowing down and enjoying life a bit more. I have fond childhood memories of camping with my cousins and remember as a child marvelling at how they managed to fit 2 children, 2 adults, a golden retriever and loads of camping gear in their fantastic green and white VW split screen campervan and later their white bay window van. My wife Gail had different memories of campervan ownership having driven 2 bay window vans in the late 70’s and mid 80’s and remembered the freezing cold winter drives and difficulty turning around in tight spaces!!

I carried out some more research on Type 2 vans and came across a couple of references to VW Downunder who had many positive comments from van owners and prospective van owners alike. I also discovered that they were just over the Dartford bridge in Essex and I decided to call in and see them.

On my first visit to Downunder I met Paul and was immediately struck by his enthusiasm for his vans and was also impressed by the speed at which he put the kettle on and made us a cup of tea!! Paul showed me around a couple of Brazilian vans that he was in the process of converting and also mentioned that he had a 1974 right hand drive Westfalia van that he was planning to restore. As soon as I saw this van I was interested but being the cautious type (Gail disagrees – she knew that I loved the van at first sight) I wanted to carry out some more research before committing.

I checked out numerous blogs and threads from the on-line campervan community and soon realised that Paul is highly regarded and a specialist in his field. Without further ado I returned to VW Downunder and paid the holding deposit for ‘Geraldine’ – this was back in June 2009 and was the start of a fantastic journey that culminated in my first drive of a fully restored beautiful van 2 days ago.

Paul has an infectious enthusiasm and involved me in all stages of the restoration and the journey to Stanford-le-hope became very familiar. Along the way I met the fantastic specialists and enthusiasts that Paul uses to assist with the restoration and even helped Paul pick up a tool cabinet for his new apprentice Greg!!

As the job progressed we saw that van taking shape from the initial stripping out of the interior, through welding, painting, lowering, re-fitting and had great fun choosing the colours for the interior.

Gail and I are absolutely delighted with the finished van and, whilst we might disagree about the virtues of power steering and instant heat we are really looking forward to summers with Geraldine who Gail refers to as ‘the other woman’!!