My other car is a wicked campervan!!! (Wicked Campervans)

Member Name: Kayteehee

Product:	Wicked Campervans
Date:	19/07/09 (269 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Fun, Good for adventure, awesome road trip

Disadvantages: Basic, no frills..though this is fine!

**The Company Info**
Wicked is a rental company in Australia that specialises in unique campervans for backpackers/travellers on a low budget. They also have branches across the world and seem to be rapidly expanding. If you have done any travelling around Australia, you no doubt will have seem them driving around, they are literally everywhere.

**Booking the van**
Last year I studied in Adelaide for 5 months and then my girlfriend came over to come travelling me. We wanted to travel for six weeks, down the whole of the East Coast, and after checking out the options, renting a cheap campervan was our best bet. Wicked have have been in the press repeatedly for their controversial marketing and the 'graffiti-style' paint job they have on their vans. Some of them feature quite sexist slogans both on the side and on the back, so make sure if you have any special requirements when hiring a van for moral/religious/embarrassment needs then let them know.

We decided we wanted a huge adventure, and decided to drive from Cairns to Adelaide. As I was 20 at the time, most campervan companies would not let me hire a van, despite having a full clean driving licence for 3 years. My partner was 21. Wicked Campers lets people over the age of 18 rent a van, as long as they have a valid driving licence. If you are age under 21 you will have to pay slightly more insurance, around $15 a day so make sure you calculate this in. However, this was the cheapest option for us.

Our van hire was $49 and then $33 a day respectively, working out at around £15 per day per person. We went with the cheapest van because we weren't bothered about the air conditioning as we were travelling during the Australian winter. This was our travel and most accommodation sorted. Petrol was obviously extra, though cheaper than the UK make sure you have adequate budget for this. It is a good point to note that it is cheaper in Australia to fill up on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and at supermarket petrol stations. You can generally save around 15 cents per litre by avoiding the weekends. We looked at all the options and worked out it was cheaper to hire a van from Cairns to Brisbane, then change vans. Even though there was a $200 one-way-fee... hiring it from Brisbane to Adelaide worked out cheaper per day and better overall. So that is what we did.

**Picking it up**
We sorted out all of the booking online, and this was confirmed to us and we got sent a map of the depot location. We got a cheap flight from Adelaide to Cairns, and stayed in a horrific backpackers hostel, but that's another story. The next day we managed to grab a taxi from the hostel to the campervan place, the taxi driver knew it well. On arrival, the depot was more like a house with a garden full of campervans, on walking in we were greeted by friendly laid back staff, who showed us to our van - incase you're wondering, we had a van that said "Everytime you fart you lose 0.00001% of your braincells"... and some lovely slogan on the back about visiting the toilet. We were far too excited about our imminant trip to care. The depot also had a section where you could pick up stuff for free, this it where backpackers going home could dump their excess stuff off and people could re-use it. This came in really handy for us, we picked up a few extra blankets, a bucket, and some stuff like salt and tomato ketchup. The van we hired had 3 seats, we just wanted more flexibility though it cost the same price as a 2-seater. We sorted out the relevant paperwork and the huge deposit incase of damage - I think it was around $700 or more. Then after a quick demo from the staff we were off.

**Our Van**
We had the first van for ten days, we loved it from day one. We quickly adjusted to using an automatic vehicle for the first time. It was a Mitchubusi, unsure of all the technical information about it unfortunately, but it worked! It had good dashboard and glove compartment space to stash your maps and guide books, and the back is arranged so you can either have it set up with a table and 2 'sofa-style' chairs, or change it into a double bed. It had storage compartments under the bed and there was enough place to shove all of our gear. The back had a "kitchen" which consisted of a small worktop, a sink (which you could pump water up through a water bottle on the floor), a couple of shelves. They also provide the very basics for cooking - two pans, plates, cups, cutlery. There is also a gas bottle with a stove on the top that you have to pull out of the van to cook on. The kitchen could be accessed by opening the boot. The last thing this van had was any hint of luxury. This is cheap, backpacker, slumming-it style travelling. It was perfect.

**The Journey**
I could go on and on about how amazing our journey was... and tell you everything we did, but this would take hours and you'd be falling asleep, so I'll just say the highlights. On the first leg, we decided to drive upwards to go to Cape Tribulation as even though it wasn't in the main direction of travel, we didn't want to miss it. We drove around 2,500 miles in total. We saw rainforest, we slept next to deserted beaches, we had a romantic dinner in the park at Byron Bay, all made using our campervan 'kitchen'.

Even though at first, finding places to park without paying a camping fee, preferably near public toilets was a chore, it became exciting. On one day, we used a cold public shower at the side of the road. It had a lockable door and we just made the most of everything. We found coconuts next to the beach in Port Douglous and spent nearly an hour getting into them using a butter knife. Driving is nothing like driving in England, hardly any traffic jams, long stretches of open roads, interesting things to see along the way.

We used a 'Lonely Planet' Guidebook, which can be quite expensive but we got it second-hand in Cairns. We just kept having to ring to confirm opening times etc as the book was a couple of years old. We also used maps and highlighted them at each step of the journey. Some days we only drove for an hour, some we drove for 6 or 7 broken up. I did most of the driving.

At one point, my partner forgot that we were driving an automatic and got really confused going for the clutch, and couldn't hit the brake. That would usually be ok, except we were driving onto the concrete 'ferry' block to take us across the Daintree River, which was full of crocodiles, and we nearly provided them with breakfast!

We did stay in campsites a couple of times a week to have a shower, wash our clothes etc, you will probably need to factor in this cost unless you are extremely smelly. Some campsites have affiliation with Wicked Campers and offer a discount, so make sure you check this out too!

**Foster- Our Next Campervan**
We changed campervans at Brisbane, the depot is AN ABSOLUTE nightmare to find, so give yourself PLENTY of time to get there, you don't want to get fined.
The next campervan 'Foster' was smaller than the other and I preferred to drive it as it was a manual engine. It had all the same features as the other van, thought it only had two seats. It was easier to park and fine to handle.
Both campervans we had had bumps and dents on them, it's quite good though as they don't charge you for scratches, bumps etc.

**Dropping off the Campervans**

When we dropped them off we had them checked over incase of damage, everything was deemed to be fine and we then got some free Wicked Camper memorabilia, I wouldn't recommend using some the bumper stickers they have on your car back home, you might scare your Grandparents!! The deposit went back into my bank account within ten days and I also received a follow up email asking me about my experiences.

**Overall**
Our trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am over the moon to say to people that I drove 2,500 miles down the coast of Oz, not too many people can say that. The campervan hire cost less than £700 each for 6 weeks, which I didn't feel was bad at all. It works out at about £16 a day each. You can save 10% off hire by booking a subsequent hire in any of the countries they operate in. They also have crazy offers on - they ran one a few weeks ago whereby if you turned up naked to hire your van you got the first day free. It is surprising the number of people that actually did that.... see pics on website to prove it!

The website and easy of booking/use of campervans is good, and there are loads of tips, stories and photographs from other travellers. The best part about using a Wicked Camper was feeling like we were part of a community experience, every time we passed another Wicked Camper it seemed the law to wave your arms off, flash your lights and beep your horn.

What a Wicked Road Trip!!!!

Summary: What a WICKED trip!