A TRAVEL-loving sailor has found himself with nothing but a smile after his beloved van, packed with all his gear for a trip to Fremantle, was stolen just hours before he was due to leave Darwin.

When the thieves made off with Robbie Lewis’s white 1983 Toyota Hi-Ace in the early hours of Saturday morning they also took his tools, music equipment, passport, wallet, and a swag of memorabilia he had been collecting for years.

“I didn’t get my car stolen – I got my life stolen,” he said. “I’ve got nothing, nothing at all.

“Exit life, stage left.”

Mr Lewis was staying with friends in Stokes St, Parap, after returning from a sailing trip to Indonesia.

He was all packed to drive to Fremantle the next day.

He is now hoping someone will recognise the van and contact police.

“It’s so distinctive – there’s this huge bullbar on the front with huge spotties,” he said.

Mr Lewis said the NT police had been “amazingly helpful” in trying to find his van.

“They’ve come back, they’re following it up,” he said.

Mr Lewis, 55, who said he works as a “pleasure craft maintenance consultant”, said he preferred the sea, where all you need is a good sail and a breeze.

“I’ll stick to sailing now, I’ve had it with driving,” he said.

Mr Lewis was philosophical about his loss yesterday, describing it as an “opportunity for rebirth” – and he didn’t mean the rebirthing of his travelling van by thieves. “I guess I’ll give it a day or so then jump the plane and have to go home and work it out,” he said.

“I’ve just got to get on with it.”

And he said he would be taking advice from Hunter S. Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” – which seemed to mean he would go with the flow.

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