The Camping Thread

[BENT_8]

A group of about 20 of us are supposed to be heading to Lake Bonney this weekend to celebrate our good mates final camping trip before we spread his ashes, not sure it'll be happening with this Covid restriction crap ramping up.

[sgt_doofey]

Just a quick review of the Port Hughes Caravan Park...

It's a great, family friendly place. Lots of things for the kids to do with the bouncy pillow, playground, mini-golf and bike/scooter pump track.
Amenitites were good, nice and clean with large showers.
Great camp kitchen and pool area but no shade over the pool area. Pool is solar heated but was still freezing cold in the middle of winter
Friendly staff.
Nice, large sites. We fit our 6x3m tent, 6x3m gazebo, car and trailer on the site with room to space.
They have communal fire pits, but fires are allowed on your site as long as they are contained in some sort of fire pit and is at least 200mm off the ground. I used a washine machine drum on bricks.
Sites are only dirt but do have a mat on them for your tent, caravan, etc.
Has a boardwalk down to the beach and can easily walk in to the heart of Port Hughes along the beach.

It was a good park to visit for a few days. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It must have just been very good timing on our behalf, but it was very queit there with not too many people there. Helps that we were there outside of normal school holiday dates.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Just a quick review of the Port Hughes Caravan Park...

It's a great, family friendly place. Lots of things for the kids to do with the bouncy pillow, playground, mini-golf and bike/scooter pump track.
Amenitites were good, nice and clean with large showers.
Great camp kitchen and pool area but no shade over the pool area. Pool is solar heated but was still freezing cold in the middle of winter
Friendly staff.
Nice, large sites. We fit our 6x3m tent, 6x3m gazebo, car and trailer on the site with room to space.
They have communal fire pits, but fires are allowed on your site as long as they are contained in some sort of fire pit and is at least 200mm off the ground. I used a washine machine drum on bricks.
Sites are only dirt but do have a mat on them for your tent, caravan, etc.
Has a boardwalk down to the beach and can easily walk in to the heart of Port Hughes along the beach.

It was a good park to visit for a few days. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It must have just been very good timing on our behalf, but it was very queit there with not too many people there. Helps that we were there outside of normal school holiday dates.

Is that the big 4? I googled port Hughes caravan Park but nothing called that specifically came up.

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by prydey

Is that the big 4? I googled port Hughes caravan Park but nothing called that specifically came up.

Yeah, it's the Porth Hughes Big 4. It's called the Big 4 Breeze Holiday Park.

[BENT_8]

Been a bit quiet in here so i thought i'd share some recent updates on my van.

Decided to remove the storage box the previous owner had installed, fortunately the frame work for the box had been installed on the factory bumper brackets and the factory bumper was retained, so i simply unbolted it all and refitted the bumper as original.

How it looked


The box removed


Bumper refitted, i set it back a bit to accommodate a pole carrier, much cleaner look.


With the original look restored i needed to alter the spare wheel carrier to stand the spare up against the back of the van again.

I bought one of these.


Fabricated this with a combination of new steel and sections removed from what i had


And then put it all together again


Just need to put the number plate and plate light back on and she's good to go again.
Look forward to seeing how it tows now.

[slowsnake]

Well that looks very professional to me, well done, I see you already have a "patent pending" eh....



Cheers Quality Control Billy.

[blueoval]

great hear Doof. What are the prices like for a camp spot?

[sgt_doofey]

We paid $180 for the 3 nights, but that's for a family of 4. I think it was a base rate of $34 per night, but it's saying $42 a night on their booking site for a powered site.

We stayed in the village area. They also have a foreshore area which is actually in a different spot. That looked like it had nice grassed areas in there but I only saw it driving past it.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

We paid $180 for the 3 nights, but that's for a family of 4. I think it was a base rate of $34 per night, but it's saying $42 a night on their booking site for a powered site.

We stayed in the village area. They also have a foreshore area which is actually in a different spot. That looked like it had nice grassed areas in there but I only saw it driving past it.

Holiday rates now.

[blueoval]

Need as job BENT. I wish I had the knowhow and skill to do stuff like this.

[sgt_doofey]

We're doing a one night trip on Saturday to The Bend. Going to take the kids karting and then stay the night in the caravan park. Should be a fun little trip!
Kids will stay in my mates camper trailer and I'm borrowing a swag to sleep in. Changing things up a little

[sgt_doofey]

Just a quick review on the The Bend Big 4 Caravan park...
It's a really good park with brand new facilities. The sites are pretty good, half gravel, half grass, so for us, we folded out the soft floor of the camper trailer on to the grass whilst the rest was on the gravel. The grass wasn't terribly flat so we had to pick our spots for our swags. I'd assume it would be the same in tents.

It's a park that you would really want to stay at if it was located in one of the popular holiday destinations. As it's a little way out of Tailem Bend, unless you're there to spend money at The Bend motor sport park, there is little else to see or do.

By the way, karting there was really good fun, so I highly recommend doing that!

As an aside, I also had to run my fridge today as a freezer as we were without power at home due to a dodgy RCD. I measured the power usage running as a freezer set at -18 degrees and it used 5.2Ah over about 5 hours. That didn't include the initial chilling down to -18 from 8 degrees.
Once again, a cold day here in Adelaide, so the fridge wouldn't have had to work hard at all.
I'm still quite impressed with the Kings fridge. Does all that we need it to, so far

[prydey]

Anyone from Adelaide (or interstate) been to Bendelby Ranges or Rawnsley Park Station?

[sgt_doofey]

I found this video by some young Aussie lads quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMLoji5WTk

Basically, creating a 12v system in his 4wd that has wireless on/off capability and motion detection sensor as well. I think this is something I might look to add to my camp lighting set up

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

I found this video by some young Aussie lads quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMLoji5WTk

Basically, creating a 12v system in his 4wd that has wireless on/off capability and motion detection sensor as well. I think this is something I might look to add to my camp lighting set up

Great set up. Like his computer. Nice when its all simple 12V, few years back, searched everywhere myself for a 12v compact printer. Ended up with a Canon i70 sorta looks like a portable flat scanner but works well.

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Like his computer.

Being an IT person myself, that really tickled my fancy. I'm thinking that a Raspberry Pi might also be on the cards at some stage in the near future

You can get reasonable sized monitors that run off of 12v these days. Some of the newer ones will have a 12v adapter that just plugs in to the back as it's power supply. I'd have to double check, but I think my wife's 27" Curved Samsung monitor is 12V.

I would have thought that there would have been a few travel printers out there in the world, not many but a few.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Being an IT person myself, that really tickled my fancy. I'm thinking that a Raspberry Pi might also be on the cards at some stage in the near future

I would have thought that there would have been a few travel printers out there in the world, not many but a few.

You would be surprised that there isn't that many around especially 12v. It was mounted on little ruber blocks with Velcro so it could fold up in transit.
Pictured here with the little 12V Eeepc I had at the time.

[prydey]

Ahh, slim dusty. My old boy had the 'Lights on the hill' record. I think I still know every song off by heart

[blueoval]

Been a while since Ive been on here.

Went car camping on a private property in Pinnaroo about 3 weeks ago. Pretty sandy out there and thought it would be a great place to test out the Outbacks X mode 2. It's called Deep Snow and Mud setting. Pretty much turns off traction control and gives me more power down low to spin the wheels through deep sand. My mates with Rangers/Hiluxes etc were impressed at how well it handled everything. Had no issues and didnt even have to air down.

2021-08-29 10.11.30-1 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-41 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-22 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-6 by S B, on Flickr

[Ben73]

Black wagons with roof boxes look mad. I'd love a Volvo V90 with a nice sleek box.

Has anyone put a roof top tent on a box trailer?
I'm looking at buying a box trailer and getting some sort of frame to mount a roof top tent onto. I would like to be able to use the actual box part of the trailer for normal trailer things, but still be able to easily set up camp and leave it set up for a few days while still using the 4x4.

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Black wagons with roof boxes look mad. I'd love a Volvo V90 with a nice sleek box.

Has anyone put a roof top tent on a box trailer?
I'm looking at buying a box trailer and getting some sort of frame to mount a roof top tent onto. I would like to be able to use the actual box part of the trailer for normal trailer things, but still be able to easily set up camp and leave it set up for a few days while still using the 4x4.

Ive seen it done on a caged frame trailer and it seems to work well with kitchen setup under the RTT. I was going to go that way personally but find car camping in the wagon easier to an extent.

I wouldn't mind a box trailer setup or spend up on a pod trailer. But that is into a lot of moola for a rig like that.

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Has anyone put a roof top tent on a box trailer?
I'm looking at buying a box trailer and getting some sort of frame to mount a roof top tent onto. I would like to be able to use the actual box part of the trailer for normal trailer things, but still be able to easily set up camp and leave it set up for a few days while still using the 4x4.

I haven't done it Myself, But We've camped near people with that type of setup. Seemed to work OK..

Originally Posted by Ben73

Yeah I've looked into almost every set up and some of the dedicated offroad campers cost more than my car did new.

I like the idea of a box since it will be cheap and versatile.

We just Bought a S/H Baggage trailer & carry our; Tent, Gazebo, Tables chairs & associated Crap in It. Have a solar cell on the Roof Fridge Mounted at the Front We're gradually getting Gas bottle/Jerry can Holders invertor ect fitted up to It..

Similar (But Different) to This..

[Ben73]

Yeah I've looked into almost every set up and some of the dedicated offroad campers cost more than my car did new.

I like the idea of a box since it will be cheap and versatile.

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Yeah I've looked into almost every set up and some of the dedicated offroad campers cost more than my car did new.

I like the idea of a box since it will be cheap and versatile.

Definitely worthwhile and a lot quicker to pack up. Some of the campers I've seen are a 2 man job and take up to an hour to properly pack away.

[BENT_8]

We went from a soft floor to a Ezytrail forward fold as i thought it would be more user friendly, boy was i wrong.
Yes the soft floor required a bit of effort to unpack and pack up again but they are so much more user friendly in terms of storage and maneuverability, the forward fold weighed a ton, had bugger all storage space and still took quite a bit of time to set up.
At the time we had the choice of forward fold or rear fold, we went forward fold as it gave you an elevated lounge area that doubled as an extra bed, problem was it was uncomfortable, cramped and was a pain to make and pack away the extra bed every day.
If i had my time again i would have bought the rear fold as you get heaps of under bed storage and although you dont get the built in lounge area or extra bed, the raised floor area is versatile.

As for making up your own rooftop on a frame, great idea as you can build it to suit your needs.
We have the Van now but when i go by myself i want something more compact so i recently bought an Oztent RS1 swag and 6x4 trailer.
The plan is to build a frame and platform on the trailer to set the swag up on when on site with storage and pull out kitchen underneath, wack an awning on the side and im set, I'll also have somewhere to put firewood for winter camping which is something i disliked not having the ability to take with the forward fold due to lack of storage room.

[WyldOne]

Anyone here have Darche Dirty Dee swag. Looking for feedback or other similar swag recommendations

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Anyone here familiar with the Skamper Kampers, in particular the Ranger model? There's a 2015 model advertised locally for $5k which looks to be in good condition.

Did an Internet search and the additional rooms look pretty tidy. I'm looking at buying a cheap van/camper to dip the toe in the water to see if the vaning thing is for me or not, without spending a fortune on something I may not like. Ultimately I'd love to get a maverick raptor, but this seems like a good option to test the water with.

Would appreciate any thoughts on this.

[slowsnake]

Have you looked at a 2nd hand A Van?



Cheers Billy

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by slowsnake

Have you looked at a 2nd hand A Van?



Cheers Billy

I certainly haven't ruled anything in or out at this stage, Billy. I have been keeping an eye on the market for around 6 months or so now and have only seen a couple of the A vans pop up (bearing in mind that my criteria are less than 10k and in Vic).

[slowsnake]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

I certainly haven't ruled anything in or out at this stage, Billy. I have been keeping an eye on the market for around 6 months or so now and have only seen a couple of the A vans pop up (bearing in mind that my criteria are less than 10k and in Vic).

Oh how I miss my workshop, my prospecting and my retirement dream, all I had or did was over 10 years ago, but you should be able to find a manufacturer in Victoria, 10 grand is plenty for a new one, 10 years ago they were made in China, shipped in a package, ( think Ikea ) and they assembled them here and stuck a made in Australia sticker on it, try the camping mags and good luck.....


Regards William