Getting ready to leave

On previous trips, we have kept an on-line blog diary, which has meant that friends and family could follow our travels. At the end of the trip, we were able to print the diary into a book.
Unfortunately, the blog site we used, ‘Travelpod’ has shut down and we have been searching for a similar site for this trip. We think we have found a suitable site, ‘Find Penguins’, and hope it is easy to use. We will find out…….

Pre trip preparation.
We have been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Lots of thoughts, ideas, preparations with the both the car and caravan, before we headed on our way.
We will be away for 4 months, using L/S Leave and A/Leave and want to make things as comfortable as possible.
We love travelling in the outback, and free camping, and are fully set up for off-grid camping.
We have a 2022 Goldstream Panther Off-Road pop top, towed with a 2016 Ford Ranger.
On our last trip on the Oodnadatta Track in 2022, we were legal but borderline with weights for car and caravan, but this trip we will also be taking the roof top tinny and boat motor.
We have added a couple of solar panels to the roof of the caravan and an extra lithium battery under the bed in the caravan, so thought it best to do a suspension upgrade on the Ranger (GVM & GCM), which allowed us to carry extra weight and be within legal limits.
The suspension and shockers were changed on the car to an engineered standard, which enabled us to carry more weight in the car and as a total package of car and caravan.
We installed a super slim lithium battery behind the back passenger seat of the car, plus a DC-to-DC charger, which will now enable us to run a Waeco fridge in the back seat to keep drinks and food cold.
In the caravan, we had to relocate the diesel heater under the bed to make way for the extra battery. Because of this, there is no storage under the bed as the area is filled with batteries, air conditioner, diesel heater, inverter, and electronics. The only thing we store under the bed is the TV, which has seldom been used, and the soda stream.
We also brought a 250-watt portable solar panel to help top-up the solar charge if we needed it, which we carry in the back of the car.
On the Oodnadatta Track trip, we got bogged in muddy ground on our first night of our trip away, and had to use our recovery gear to get ourselves out, using the winch on the car and a pair of maxtrax. This time we have added to our recovery gear an extra set of maxtrax.
Although we are mostly happy with the caravan, there is a fault with the design of the ensuite door because it fell off on the first day of the Oodnadatta Track trip, and also in our previous Goldstream caravan the ensuite door fell off, even before we drove off the bitumen! This time we have removed the ensuite door and have replaced it with a curtain, which is much lighter and will not end up on the floor, or tied to the bed the entire trip as before.
As the caravan is a pop-top, there is not a lot of storage, and it has minimal overhead storage, so we needed to think carefully about what we take, and only pack items that are compact and light-weight.
About a dozen pre-cooked meals were frozen prior to leaving, and the freezer and fridge was stocked so we would not need to do a shop until we got to Cairns or beyond.
Our last caravan had a 3-way fridge, but this caravan has a compressor fridge, which relies solely on electricity power (battery) to run. It is supposed to be more reliable in warmer climates, so we will test that out. This also makes us less reliant on our gas bottles.
For cooking in the caravan, we have a 4-burner gas hob and grill, a portable induction hotplate and a butane cooker for outside cooking. We also like to cook on a campfire when we have one.
As we were leaving home when it was quite cold, we needed to pack some warm clothes and bedding, but while in QLD we should only need light clothes.
Final touches to the van to make it homely, were cushions for the bed, some small pot plants, a couple of storage pockets, a macrame hat holder, and a rug for the floor.
We are ready to go.Read more