By TANIA PHILLIPS
FOR just a moment over the long weekend it was 1962 again in Cabarita Beach.
Some 20 vintage caravans headed into town over the holiday weekend for a final farewell to the Cabarita Caravan Park which is set to be redeveloped into a 23-unit residential complex by the owners, Ken and Marie Hansen in the new year.
For a couple of days the clock turned back to a time when the Hansens first opened the park and all of the caravans and cars weren’t vintage but the latest models.
The event was the brainchild of Uki-based caravanning enthusiasts Cathie and Rob Miles, who decided it was the perfect place to hold one of their vintage caravan meet-ups.
“We probably get together every six weeks – it’s all very democratic, there are now leaders, someone suggests a venue and we go from there,” she said.
“We’re not a club just from a couple of online forums.”
The enthusiast came from the Sunshine Coast in the north to Bellingen in the south, getting in the spirit of the era holding dances, having communal pancake breakfasts and dressing in costumes from the ’50s and ’60s.
“We are all very social people – we don’t just come and sit by ourselves in our caravans. We like to have a laugh and have a dance – one old-fashioned pastime has opened the doors to a whole heap of others.”
She said the Cabarita Caravan Park, with its lack of kerb and guttering and lovely old facilities had been the perfect venue for the vintage vans – many of which were from the same timeframe as the park itself.
Cathie said it seemed only fitting for the group to come and say goodbye to the park.
“I really wish this caravan park could continue – we are losing so many of these lovely little coastal parks,” she said.
“It’s a real shame.”
The group, which included several Tweed Coast caravan enthusiasts, created a living museum for locals and visitors to the Cabarita Beach/Bogangar with many dropping in over the weekend to visit the town’s newest temporary tourist attraction.
The final day also included an influx of other vintage caravans taking part in Canberra’s “Museum of the Long Weekend”.
The caravans were making their way south from Cairns to Canberra for the celebration and stopped in to add even more colour to the weekend.
More pictures, page 2.
