Feedback on Johnnos walk in Intura camper trailer

[johnmm]

G'day all,

As the title suggests we are after any feedback/thoughts good or bad on the Johnno's InTura model. I like the evolution but prefer the slightly larger tent and walkup of the Intura. Looking to accommodate a family of five. Anyway over to the forum....

Regards

John & Heather

[johnmm]

Wow surprised by no comments, or is the question in the wrong area?

[Moxley]

I'd be interested in responses to this one too

[GGV8Cruza]

One of these, http://www.campertrailer.com.au/intura_camper_trailer.html

Have not seen one in the flesh but on paper they seem to be a good camper. I am sure a few members have the same breed of camper and they have been happy with them. The poles are a little light on in the tent by the looks of a photo and it looks as though a pole goes across the doorway (aasumption from photo)

There are so many campers to choose from so I would make a spreadsheet so that you can work out what they all offer and compare them evenly against each other, goodluck on you decision

GG

[Matto]

I'd echo GG's comments. Also, I'd suggest moving the thread to General Discussion rather than GenTech - I think you'd get more responses there.

From my perspective, I've got a walkway camper (Trackabout Safari Extenda), and it's brilliant. Much more room inside than a traditional camper, and the walkway makes getting up in the middle of the night super easy. With a 9mo that doesn't sleep more than an hour at a time, we're up and down A LOT during the night :/.

The downside of course is the longer trailer body, which will eat into your offroadability. For the places we go, it's never proved an issue.

Now - comments on the Johnno's trailer. I've only seen them at camping shows, never out and about. I find their model hierarchy to be confusing. IE, when I last looked, the mid-range camper had a 60L underslung water tank. But I was interested in the next model up that had a lot of better things, but no underslung water tank - it was side-mounted for some reason. But the top-of-the-range model had it back underneath. I'm not sure if this has since been rectified, but for me it was a case of "2 steps forward, 1 back".

Looking at the one you've linked to, a couple of things jump out at me.
1) Internal door to walkway section. I don't like how that sits. Imagine you've spent all day dragging the camper through thick gloopy mud. You pull up at camp and set up. Suddenly, you've got a filthy muddy door inside your camper. I also don't like the separate step that you've got to slide in to the receivers, through the canvas. That's just another thing to deal with.
2) Kitchen bench space - or lack thereof. That would annoy me quickly.
3) Sloping walls on the tent - vastly limit internal space compared to straight walls. You can't put beds/stretchers/etc close up to the walls. Check out the Trackabout site (www.trackabout.com) to see what I mean, or check my camper thread.
4) Toolbox looks very small in all dimensions. I'd rather have the jerry cans side-mounted on the trailer, and make the toolbox the full width of the trailer. You *WILL* end up filling it completely with "essential stuff" (read, "crap").
5) Spare wheel on drawbar. I'm not a fan. I rather them on the tailgate - it's just wasted space on the drawbar that you could use for other storage. But that's just me.
6) Stone guard is vertical. I prefer the stone guard to be canted forward, to bounce rocks back down. I've heard stories of flat stone guards bouncing rocks straight back up at the rear window of the car.
7) Walkway looks narrow - looks only about 30cm wide. IMHO, that's too narrow. Trackabout started out with a 1' walkway, but it wasn't good. They now do a 2' walkway, which is perfect. Some other brands have a 3' walkway, which (to me) is too much - it's just wasted space.
That pole across the doorway that GG mentions would annoy me.

I do like the floor vent inside the tent - that's a god-send in hot weather. Likewise, the big windows.

Biggest thing for me would be to see one in the flesh, and to see how long it takes to put up/down, and how many poles it involves.

Again - I've not had any real first-hand experience with them, but that's my take based on what I have seen, and the photos of that one.

Good luck!
Matto

[johnmm]

Thanks for moving the thread GG, was about to ask what the best way was to move it.

Thanks Matto & GG for your comments some good and interesting points. Looking at the photo on website of the In-Tura I think that the external photo on the beach may have be an older version of the tent will have to ask, as it looks different.

The one I have been looking at is a slightly different shape also has a window between the door and trailer (not shown in the picture). The internal poles are free standing, that is there is just three bed bows, to put up pull the canvas out & flip the bows over and extend the last (3rd) bed bow. (similar to our current 7x4 camper) The door is at the end and I can walk in without ducking or coming close to hitting my head (I'm 6ft)
As I haven't seen a trackabout in person, do you have to extend the 1st tent bow (one closest to the bed and side wall) to get the wall straight or is it permanently set? I guessing then the third bow comes over with the 4th pivoting which is then held up with two verticals. Does the third bow get extended as well or is it permanently set?

Whilst we haven't made a decision yet which trailer (although it will be a walk-up) we are also trying to decide which internal/kitchen setup will suit us. Two options we are considering are
1. Put in a Drifta front storage box (FSB) (clothes etc) (replacing the Johhno's slide that opens into the tent) that will fit across the full width of the trailer and use a tailgate kitchen - either the existing tailgate kitchen with the addition of Drifta pantry draws, or aDrifta DSO kitchen or,
2. Reduce the length of the FSB and fit one of the Drifta Kitchens with an Evakool fridge option at the rear. For those with a pull-out kitchen how have you found the set-up, is it practical for a quick stop such as lunch? How have the stove/sink covers held up (are they a glass product?)
Things certainly have improved over the years, with lots of options now available, just need to keep it simple and practical though and not over complicate it.

Cheers
John & Heather

[Matto]

Hi John,

Sounds like the new version is different from what's shown on the website then. I certainly have nothing against a Johnno's camper - I think they're quite a solid unit. Some of their design decisions bamboozle me at times, but I think the actual constructions, etc, is quite good (from what I've seen).

As I haven't seen a trackabout in person, do you have to extend the 1st tent bow (one closest to the bed and side wall) to get the wall straight or is it permanently set? I guessing then the third bow comes over with the 4th pivoting which is then held up with two verticals. Does the third bow get extended as well or is it permanently set?

We've got the 10ft tent on ours, and the setup is pretty much exactly as you describe. We've got the older-design tent, so our set up is:
* Fold the canvas over, and go inside.
* Extend out the first bow (over the bed) to get that wall vertical
* Extend out the third bow (into the tent)
* The fourth bow is sewn in (Velcro-ed, actually) to the canvas wall, so the fiddly step is to get the vertical poles out from under the bed and slot them in to the top bow, then attach the spreader bars from the fourth bow to the third bow.
* Voila - done, and free-standing with no pegs.

The new Trackys have the swinging bow-kit which is what you've described - the 4th bow hinged off the 3rd bow; it's a much quicker setup. I'm considering modifying mine to make it a swinging setup.

Internal pics showing the pole setup here - you can (just) see the wrap of green tape on each of the 1st and 3rd bows, which is where we bring the poles back to when packing up.





Both your kitchen options sound good. Personally, I'm a fan of the Drifta pull-out setup with the fridge box. And I'm a staunch "fridge belongs in the car, not the camper" advocate. But in the Drifta setup, everything's easily to hand and where it should be. I reckon it's a great configuration.

Our kitchen is the xtrail stainless swing-out/tailgate box, with a two burner stove set into it. It's got the glass lid. It's held up well so far - I was a little concerned about it's durability, but it's not proven a problem at all so far. What I love about it is that it's so easy to swing the tailgate out, hook up the gas, and cook lunch. I've got no idea how easy the pull-out ones are - I suspect you would need to connect both gas and water?

re: the front storage drawers, I'm planning on building some drawers that slide open into the walkway of the camper, rather than out the side of the trailer. But if your canvas is already set up for that, then the Drifta drawers are an equally good solution.

As for keeping things simple and not over-complicating - I'm sorry, this is Myswag. We don't know the meaning of those words here...

Good luck!
Matto

[johnmm]

Thanks Matto for your pictures and explanation, definitely helps to understand how Trackabout do it. It's always great to listen to others point of view and what works for them, and see if it works for you. Ahh the world of choices.........

Cheers

John & Heather