I have struggled a bit to figure out how to give back to the MySwag community from which we have gained so much. I am not a regional expert of any part of Australia (I'm from the US), I have no applicable technical expertise and I am relatively new to camping. So for many weeks (months) I have been thinking about what I could add given so many folks on the site are so much more knowledgeable in so many area than me.
I realized that what I do know is what it is like to travel this beautiful country living in an off-road camper trailer for the long term. Our family of 4 have been living in our 100 series Land Cruiser (Cave Lion) and Cub Supamatic Off-road (Siberian Tiger) for the past 8 months. You can read more about our set-up here
http://milesfrombrooklyn.com/set-up/ I am not sure if this info is useful to others, but I wanted to share just in case. We are also happy to answer any questions or chat with anyone else considering a similar endeavor.
A little about our trip for context... We began our journey in Sydney in August 2014 and have since traveled through QLD to Cape York and then through Western QLD to SA, VIC and then 2 months in Tassie before making our way to WA. Some of our travel has been off the bitumen (Cape York, Strzlecki, Fraser Island, Vic High Country), but much of it does not require off-road capabilities. We have covered a range of conditions in this time ranging from -5 to 45 degrees and all sorts of weather in between. We stay in a range of places free camps, national parks to caravan parks and everything in between. We usually stay 1-3 nights places. In the past 8 months, we have spent a week or more at a place five times.
We have learned lots along the way and I thought I would share a few lessons learned about our set-up beyond the usual "don't bring too much stuff" advice. (Solid advice and frequently offered.) Obviously, this list is just our experience and many people will offer different opinions...
Power related
- All gauges should be accessible while the camper is packed up. Our water and battery level gauge are only accessible when we are unpacked which is irritating. If we come across a drinking water tap in a town, we end up guessing whether we need water.
- Similarly, if you get an inverter, I would make sure it is accessible when the trailer is packed up. We have a pure sine wave inverter, but it is only accessible when our camper is open meaning if we forget to charge the camera batteries, we are out of luck.
- One win on the power front is that we have two USB jacks running off our auxiliary batteries in our car. They are in-use constantly.
- Knowledge on the road about solar is limited. You can find lots of other campers that will help with all sorts of other issues, but few really understand solar set-ups. If you find someone that truly gets it, buy them a beer and get their phone number
- To conserve power, we tend to put all of our lunches, snack and daytime drinks in our car fridge. We never have to worry about the power level of our auxiliary battery in our car, so it works to open that fridge during the hottest part of the day. We have to be more careful with our camper power, so we try to just open that in the morning and at night.
Set-up / Gear
- We rarely set-up our awning and even less frequently use the walls. It adds about 20 minutes to set-up and pack-up and when we move every couple of days it is not worth it to us. When we do stay for several days (and we know we are going to stay when we arrive), we always enjoy having the awning up, but it is pretty rare. The walls have only been used a handful of times. I thought we would end up using them in Tassie, but even with the wind and rain, we didn't find it worth the effort. (Wow, we are starting to sound a bit lazy!) I think they are fantastic when we set-up a proper camp, but we haven't done it much. Next time around, I would put the walls and tropical roof on the nice to have list.
- The large floor covering for under our awning is really helpful in places with black or red dirt or rain. Otherwise, we usually just use a couple of foam squares outside of our tent. I would put this item on the nice to have list next time around.
- During the days of long daylight, we don't use our camp lights much. For months, I would have said we have rarely used our outdoor LED lights. Now that it gets dark at 6PM, that has all changed.
- We rarely use the awning on our Land Cruiser. The only time it is in use is when we drive the car onto the beach. If I was to buy a new awning for the car, I would choose one that has a cover over the zipper. Our ARB awning has an exposed zipper and it gets so dusty, it is difficult to open and we always have to clean it first.
- The size of your fridge(s) and the amount of water you can carry go a long way to dictating how long you can be in remote areas. Seems like common sense but we have met many travelers with amazing set-ups frequently limited by these two elements. We can carry 260L of water (200L in camper and 60L in the car). We have a 85L fridge in the camper and a 45L fridge in the Cruiser. We have never come to the end of our water (I don't want to), but on longer remote stretches, we use everything in both fridges.
- We have a portaloo, but we don't use it. Turns out we all fear it and it continues to waste space... Eventually we will get brave enough to use it or get rid of it.
Weather
- I don't care what people say... If it rains heavily for several days, canvas gets wet and everything inside the tent starts to feel damp. One lesson learned is that if it is raining, make sure everything, particularly bedding is pulled away from the walls, otherwise it gets soaked. If we can easily avoid rain we do, when we can't if it is going to rain for a few days, we usually use that as an opportunity to call into a caravan park. Having a place to sit with actual walls and the ability to cook indoors makes lots of rain less irritating. We also added extra press studs to our tent to make sure that all of the water runs down the outside of the canvas and doesn't get stuck in the seams.
- We had an electric heater early on, but didn't use it. We ended up getting rid of it and just layering up on very cold nights.
- Tropical roof is probably quite useful, but it doesn't fit to stay on when our camper is folded up with bedding for 4 on our mattress. As a result, it is rarely used.
Food
- It's been mentioned before, but cryovacing meat is miraculous. The meat lasts forever. When I go to a butcher, I get all of my meat cryovaced except what we are eating that night. That way, we never have meat go bad.
- Wraps, burritos and Nori (seaweed paper) are all great to have in the pantry because they store flat, can easily be combined with whatever is available to eat, can easily help recycle leftovers and they last forever.
- I always stock up on ethnic ingredients (mostly spices and sauces) when in a big city, which provides much more eating variety when going weeks and months between big cities.
Car Maintenance
- If you meet someone on the road that loves their vehicle and knows a lot about it, ask them where they live and get the name of their mechanic. When you roll through that city, do your scheduled service. It is easier to plan servicing for the car around known reputable mechanics than to end up somewhere and have no context to find a mechanic... And when in doubt, ask on MySwag
And finally...
Last but certainly not least, this is a really beautiful country and we feel so lucky to have seen as much as we have. Even more than the beautiful country has been the kindness of strangers. We came to this country not knowing anyone and we have found people so willing to help and share information with us and we now have many people we count as friends. We have only met one MySwagger in person (Hi Mark!), but we have found this the most amazing resource. I wish I had as much to return as we have gained from it!
I will add to the list as more things come up in the coming months.
