As has been said elsewhere, I bought this van in Sydney at the start of my travels around Australia, and spent a couple of months fixing it up before I set off, meeting Hester shortly afterwards.

 

We have amazing memories of travelling around Australia in the van, and therefore brought it back to the UK when our travels were over. It has been with us ever since. We moved house twice in it. I drove it to work for several years. We even used it to tow several beetles around the country as well as for a late dash across England and Wales to catch a ferry to Ireland (arriving about 10 minutes before the ferry left!)

 

It spent about 4 years in the garage starting around the time that Millie was born as with a 1972 VW Beetle in regular use as well, the ongoing maintenance time and road tax costs were getting too much, but it was brought out again in the summer of 2012, and I refitted it as a bus rather than a camper so that we could safely seat both of our girls in it. And it has been on the road ever since...

 

So, when faced with having to put Hester in a black hearse, I absolutely refused to do it. And then embarked on a 4 day long exercise to refit it again in order to carry Hester on the day. Both of the girls wanted to be in it as well, so I made sure that myself, Millie, Maika and of course Hester could be safely carried on our last few journeys together...

 

Below are some pictures of the van back in Australia, and after the refit, as well as on the day of the Celebration itself. It is also of course featured in some of the videos from the day, which will hopefully be up on the site shortly.