When you live in an old people’s home it’s probably safe to
say the eyes are not quite what they once were, so running a little laptop gives
a much bigger screen than some of the other gadgets and you don’t need to have
it on your knee all the time.
The
real truth is I just love gadgets and there is no more room on the dash………
Our trip planner is a Sony Viao fitted with a daylight screen that you can read
in full sunlight, it’s all carbon and very light. I altered the program a bit so
it runs with the lid shut...easy to do. We run a program called Track Ranger
over Natmap Raster premium. When we are traveling the lappy gets plugged into
the lighter socket first thing and then just thrown in the back till we need it,
usually when someone says, do we go left or right here? Track Ranger has a handy
little feature called track trace so you might not know where you are but at
least you know where you’ve been, it looks a bit like the yellow brick road. We
also carry laminated paper maps just incase we are west of the stump and
something goes wrong.
Sitting at home it’s very easy to put in lots of notes about various side trips
you can take and anything you need to look out for and then shut the lid and
take it all with you. If you like making notes about camping costs or fuel costs
or even keeping a trip diary while sitting on the passenger side, it’s a great
record of the trip. Take too many photos? Then simply empty the camera into the
lappy.
Traveling along the highway is unavoidable sometimes, but it bores us ridged and
as we like to free camp as much as possible, that can be tricky on the major
highways. You can bet that roadmen and construction gangs will nearly always
have picked a good camp spot tucked away somewhere….. on the top of cuttings is
another good one to look for and usually in hilly country there are lots of
places.
Before the trip starts I put in lots of way points and known camp spots from
Camps Australia and any other publications you might use. About mid afternoon
the lappy will get dragged out of the back cos by now we should have a good idea
where we want be about 4ish and we can start to identify a few possible spots.
Meal planning is a very important part of any enjoyable trip so that at the end
of a long driving stint you can relax a bit and not have to spend a lot of
effort getting dinner together. On long trips we make up nice meals at home and
freeze them so its just a matter of warming something up…… it is a good idea to
remember to take dinner out of the freezer before you leave each morning…we put
it in the esky to help keep the veggies cool during the day. If sally says at
about 3pm I think we might have bacon and eggs for dinner, you can back it in
that it’s still in the freezer.
Enjoying the journey and not just the destination is an important part of any
trip for us, so we tend not to travel very fast, between 80/90k is easy, and
gives us plenty of time to gaze and if we are traveling off the highway the
speed doesn’t change that much and you still gobble up the miles to say nothing
of the fuel savings. We usually travel alone and I know that is not ideal so we
take all the obvious precautions. We have 2 fuel tanks that hold 170 litres and
we use steel jerries for the extras. The trailer has a 60ltr water tank with a
bash plate and we carry extra in 20ltr plastic containers padded into milk
crates inside the car.
We carry a full set of tools and a spares box that I struggle to pick up as well
as a change of engine oil and diff oil…… the weight is frightening to say
nothing of the food and refreshments and of course Sally’s firewood. We cook on
a washing machine...saves bending down.
For
the technically minded the vehicle is a mid wheel base Landcruiser which we have
owned for nearly 20 years and it’s had a bit ‘done’ to it. There is no back seat
but 2 full length drawers instead. The engine is a 6.5 ltr chevy and we put in
taller diffs to calm it down a bit. We added coil springs to the leaf springs
which gives great security on long dirt trips and stops the back door from
dragging on the ground. We put ARB air lockers front and back. To keep it all
neat and tidy we use big bore oil Koni shocks. There is a compressor under the
driver’s seat which runs the lockers and is also used for tyre pressures. On the
dash we have a tyre pressure monitor that gives pressure and temperature to all
tyres including the ones on the trailer and the spares.… it’s important on a big
trip to spot the punctures before you wreck the tyres. Also on the dash is a
UHF.
The
trailer has 3 drawers …2 slide out the back and the other slides out the side in
front of the wheel. The front drawer holds an 85 litre fridge /freezer and 2x
90amp AGM batteries. On the roof of the cruiser there are 2 board racks that
hold 2x 90 watt solar panels. When traveling the batteries are charged by the
alternator and when we stop I simply unplug from the car and using a small
extension lead plug the panels into the front of the trailer ……it’s important to
keep the white wine cold or the cook complains. The 2 drawers in the back are
kitchen and one called Woolworths. The drawers are really great.... no more
bending down. My plan in life is to wear this thing out.
When the fire is going and dinner is warming and you are enjoying the first
bitterly cold one remember…………………… turn off the lappy.
When we return from a long trip it takes a bit of time to settle back into the
normal routine ……we sleep on the front lawn for a while and Sally keeps making
fires in the drive and I often fined myself driving down the middle of the road.
November 2008
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