Annexe – Not to be confused with awning. This one is the canvas room that slides onto the side of your van creating a second room. These things are invaluable if you have kids or grandkids and intend on having long stays at the beach. If you are a couple of grey nomads wandering about the countryside then leave the damned thing at home. It’s a marriage breaker! We aren’t good when it comes to ‘spacial intelligence’, thus the bit labelled ‘front’ looks the same as the bit labelled ‘back’ and so forth. We always have to stop halfway through putting it up to watch the instruction video, which means that we are still no faster at erecting the damned thing than we were the very first time…and it never looks any better. Now it resides on the garage shelf awaiting the next trip around Australia on the back seat of the car.

A word of warning: If you do have trouble erecting your annexe never camp near an ex soldier. Those guys can erect an annexe that will be as neat and tight as the strings on a tennis racket.