Bus!

My Dad and I have been seriously looking for an old bus on Gumtree (similar to Craigslist) for about 6 months now. He's building a small house just outside of Castlemaine and needs a guest house that will be separate from the main living quarters. Something that we can live in while we build the house.

The only restraint we have is money. We were looking for something cheap and gutted out, with wheels. I found this bus about a month ago or more, and spent quite a bit of time emailing back and forth with the original owner. There were a lot of tyre kickers who said they were interested but then didn't follow through with payment so we drove down at the last minute to save her from the scrappers.

As soon as I saw her I knew she was the one ♥

She is a Bedford from 1959, has a beautiful streamline body and has hardwood floors. We bought her on the spot and now she is sitting in a storage yard in Geelong until we transport her to Dad's block sometime around May. We already have grand plans for her, including a ship stove with chimney, pressed tin curved roof painted crimson, velvet curtains, a drafting desk, crystal ball skylight and stained glass windows!

The original owner told me that she is an ex-circus bus that broke down in the lot next to his house ten years ago. The people from the circus said he could keep the bus if he could tow her out of the lot, so he did. He had planned on getting her working again, but I think it was too big a job for him so he put her in the storage yard with all the other orphaned busses.

Dad has also got a plywood caravan from 1959 so we were considering calling them Desi and Lucille. But we haven't quite decided yet. Dad wants to paint the name we decide on in her destination scroll.

By the end of the year, I imagine we will have a beautiful cozy home like this woman has created. And who knows, we might be living in it sooner than we think!

Thank you so much for the overwhelming amount of support about the break-in. We have decided to just be positive about the situation and we will be especially careful with our safety in the future. We had the locks changed today so I feel a lot more secure now. Apparently there have been a few burglaries in our area in the last week, so hopefully the bad guys are becoming sloppy and get caught soon. We have no hope of getting  the camera back, which means we are switching to analogue. I aim to use a roll of film a week so my photos will either be less literal, or just a week behind. Again, I really appreciate the kind words, it has made this whole thing a lot less horrible!