Of all of the strange and unprecedented feelings that towing a caravan evinced, this is, without doubt, the weirdest.

I am driving along a wide-open highway, with a 110km/h speed limit, and I’m sitting, voluntarily, on 100km/h. Sometimes even 95km/h, in the slow lane.

Now I have seen the slow lane before, and wished loudly that other people would stay in it, but it’s not somewhere I, as a driving enthusiast, have spent much time. But with a 22-foot-long, three-tonne-plus caravan looming over the rear of my incredibly brave and stupendously capable Mazda BT-50 ute, all I can think - particularly when going down hills - is “that feels fast enough to me”.  

 

 

Which brings me to yet another strange and foreign emotion I’m feeling - empathy for other people towing caravans. In the past, I have had little to no time or patience for these people, indeed I have possibly said, or even shouted, mean and angry things about how they should get off the road, or at least pull over and get out of my way.

But now, after a few eye-opening days as a virginal caravanista, I get it, I understand. Pulling over is hard, and towing a caravan on public roads is no mean feat, and one that should possibly be more respected by other road users.

As for the ability to accurately reverse a car with a caravan on the back of it into an assigned space, and make it look easy, anyone who can do that should, quite frankly, be worshipped as some kind of deity.

 

 

I must admit this - the seemingly impossible mission of reversing a caravan in a busy holiday park while other, more manly men pointed at me and laughed - was what was largely keeping me sleepless for the few nights leading up to my caravanning adventure with the BT-50.

What I wasn’t perhaps considering carefully enough was how much work it would be to get the van in question - an SRT-22F Family Adventure van lent to me by the very brave and trusting people at Snowy River Caravans - from its home base outside Newcastle to my weekend destination at the Ocean Beach Holiday Resort in Umina.

I also underestimated just how much my photographer would enjoy laughing at me as I rolled around on the ground trying to understand, for the first time ever, how attaching, and towing, something like this works.

 

 

I must admit that once this huge and splendid-looking van was hooked up (a lengthy and careful process involving many chains, tow balls, bits and bobs) to my tough-looking, black-on-black ute - complete with Darth Vader-like snorkel - I began to have doubts about the mathematical likelihood of what I was about to attempt.

Quite clearly, yet surprisingly to me, the caravan was much larger than the BT-50 being asked to tow it, and even though I knew it was within the Mazda’s 3.5-tonne towing capacity, it just didn’t look possible and I had to quell a concern that I would get in, in front of all these caravan sales people, and then be unable to leave their yard.

 

 

Torque - as I should have known - is a very fine thing indeed, and the BT-50’s 3.0-litre turbocharged diesel engine offers up a hefty 450Nm of it, from 1600rpm to 2600rpm, which turns out to be more than enough to move all that van (its 140kW come in handy, too). This Mazda was also fitted with the vital trailer brakes, which worked so seamlessly and effortlessly to pull me up that I eventually stopped being worried about it entirely.

To be specific, my BT-50 was fitted with a Mazda option called the Electric Brake Controller and Breakaway ($867), and as my caravan salesmen friends informed me, I would not have been allowed out on the roads without it, because I was towing something rated over two tonnes. This ingenious system operates with no concern, from you, the driver, and seamlessly integrates the braking system of the ute with the caravan’s electric brakes.

Basically, I push the brakes, as usual - and there’s genuinely no great difference in the feel of that experience - and the caravan stops as well, and stays straight behind me. There’s different modes too – automatic/proportional or user-controlled, which is especially useful if you’re going offroad on sand, mud and dirt.

 

 

The “Breakaway Harness”, which is legally required to be fitted as part of all this, supplies power to the trailer breakaway system, as an enhanced safety system.

While I was nervous about attempting something so visually intimidating, that I’d never done before (nor even sat in a car while someone else was doing it), I must admit I was shocked at how quickly I got used to it.

I’d done my research - calling up a lot of people I know who caravan regularly to ask their advice - and I knew that I had to think carefully and constantly about the size and length of what was behind me, and approach intersections appropriately. But honestly, it becomes second nature so quickly.

A Bluetoothed screen stuck to my dash was also providing footage from a camera on the back of the van, so I could see what was going on behind me, and other than causing the odd, small-ish traffic jam, I made it along the huge, three-lane-wide Newcastle freeway with ease, and then without too much struggle, the smaller, narrower roads that led to the Ocean Beach Holiday Resort.

Once we were finally set up in a photographically suitable location (sure enough, the snapper made me move the van again the next morning, to an even better spot, but by then I was feeling very close to being in control of the whole magic of manoeuvring a caravan), we could settle into enjoying the experience of staying in a caravan.

 

 

My teen daughter, in particular, absolutely loved this, diving into her snug, soft-toy-filled bunk and pretty much refusing to come out again. My wife and I left her there to take in the beauty of Umina Beach, which was lovely, only to return to find many incredibly friendly people admiring my big, and clearly brand new, caravan and wanting to know how much it had cost me ($92,000, in theory), and how much I loved it.

Truly, there’s something super communal about caravan parks - the lack of walls between you, I guess, and the fact that you quite often share kitchens, barbecues and even bathroom facilities.

Our particular Holiday Park was also filed with fun stuff for kids, including a giant bouncy pillow that entirely took the wind out of me while filling my daughter with excess laughter.

By the time we had to pack up and leave, the caravan really did feel like a home away from home - and we were particularly fond of both the heater and the pillow-top mattress, a level of luxury I would not have previously associated with a caravan.

While the family headed back to Sydney I made the trip back to Newcastle alone, with a short detour once I realised the satnav had taken me on a route involving a low railway bridge that I was never going to get under. The several about-turn moves I had to make to get out of that situation, without the help of anyone, made me realise I’d made real progress in the mastery of caravanning.

The final trip did involve some high winds on the highway, which can be intimidating at first, but the BT-50 remained solid and stolid throughout and I made it to the finish line back at Snowy River Caravans, where they looked equal parts delighted and surprised to see me, and their precious van, in one piece.