Goodbye to the Nissan Patrol

We purchased the Nissan Patrol in March 2010 with two specific reasons in mind.  We were planning and preparing for our caravan trip around Australia and as we were intending to upsize the caravan Peter felt it was important to upsize the car as well.  So at that stage it was good-bye to our one year old Nissan Pathfinder and we purchased the Nissan Patrol.

We had used the Pathfinder extensively as a member of the Landrover Club in Melbourne - yes the Landrover Club.  We had chosen that club over the Nissan club as friends of ours were members (always a big advantage when joining up with something new) and secondly the club monthly meetings were held within a couple of kilometres of our home in Box Hill North.  The Pathfinder had performed very well and we had enjoyed the 4wd outings and events we had attended.  With the Nissan Patrol we had no doubt that it too would perform well and it always did.

After our lap of Australia trip in excess of 50,000 the Patrol had serviced us very well.  We have now sold the caravan and as we live in New Zealand for about six months of the year our use of the Patrol moving forward was going to be somewhat limited.  This year we had ticked off two of our major 4wd bucket list items - to travel the Simpson Desert and to explore Fraser Island.  It was now time for the Patrol to go.

In some ways sadly, Peter spent a few days emptying the Patrol of all the extras he had gathered for our various trips and negotiations had been completed with the prospective buyer.  It was time to deliver the Patrol to the vehicle broker.

The next task was to buy a much cheaper vehicle, that was reliable and could transport all our camping gear (remember we have been away from Melbourne already four months so not travelling particularly "light").  We had a quick education on the State laws about buying vehicles when away from your home state (ours being Victoria) but fortunately we had a Queensland address so we could have a vehicle ownership transferred and registered.  Without this there is a very limited time in which to have the vehicle registered in Victoria and we will not be returning to the state within that time frame.

We were very lucky that the people that we are house sitting for were keen for us to use their vehicle on a regular basis.  This allowed us the opportunity to drive and look at various second hand vehicles. After lots of internet searching, and looking at a couple of vehicles, we are now the owners of a 2001 Ford Falcon Station Wagon.  We are now mobile again and with much less money tied up, we are comfortable to have this vehicle sitting for extensive periods of time when we are absent from Australia.

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