'Shakedown' Run

With each day that passes we get a day closer to retiring from the workforce and being able to head off on some long term camping trips.  We love camping but as we age the comfort level associated with crawling in and out of a tent and sleeping bag is no longer enough.  So, in preparation for that time when we can just hit the road and go wherever our mood takes us for as long as we want to be on the road and a life as 'Grey Nomads', we have gone and bought ourselves a caravan!

Tug (Ford Ranger) and Offroad Caravan (19ft 6" Lotus Freelander)

Caravans have come a long way since they were essentially a hard tent shell on a trailer that you tow behind the family sedan.  This thing has all the modern conveniences and if people were to accuse us of being 'glampers' (glamour campers), rather than campers, we would not be able to argue with them as we are hardly roughing it!  It has a queen size bed, fridge/freezer, 3 burner range top with oven, microwave, hot and cold running water, shower, toilet, lounge seating, LED lighting throughout and solar panels to easily recharge the on board batteries so that we can go out into the bush and stay for days without needing to plug into mains electricity.  It even has a TV & DVD system that runs off of the 12V system in the event the weather is poor and you find yourself inside for a while (or there is a big game on).

Last weekend was a public holiday long weekend which provided the perfect opportunity to get familiar with and play with our new toy.  I took a vacation day off to stretch the weekend that little bit further so we hitched the caravan to the tug and set off for a weekend in the Adelaide hills about 60km away to test all of the systems on board.  The campground we chose was not too far from home in the event something major failed along the way but away from the city and into the great outdoors where Heather could also do some metal detecting.  The photo above shows both the tow vehicle and the caravan on their maiden voyage or 'Shakedown' trip, at our Mt. Crawford forest campsite.

Below are some technical details for those that are interested in that stuff:

The 'tug' vehicle is a 2016 Ford Ranger PX2.  It has a 3.2 litre 5 cylinder turbo diesel engine driving the wheels through a 4x4 (selectable 2H, 4H or 4L) 6 speed automatic transmission.  It is very capable and is well suited to towing a heavy van with its 3,500kg tow rating.

The caravan is a 19ft 6" Lotus Freelander off-road caravan.  The off-road ability comes from the elevated ground clearance, DO35 fully articulated 'Hitchmaster' off-road tow hitch, tandem axles (each of the 4 wheels has fully independent suspension), 2 x 9kg (20lb) LPG / Propane gas bottles, 2 x 95 litre fresh water tanks + 1 x 62 litre grey water tank, 2 x 120W solar panels and  2 x 120Ah deep cycle batteries.  Low energy use but very bright LED lighting is throughout.

The weekend itself was a wet one for the first two days (good to see if the roof leaked - happy to report that it does not), and cold (for Australia and for campers on the ground in tents), for the last couple of nights with a decent layer of frost on the car in the morning.

Frosty!

Heather was keen to get out and do some metal detecting (rain or shine) amongst the old (1885) goldfield diggings that are present within the forest.

Suited up and ready to go rain or shine.  It was RAIN in this case!

Working over old diggings with new technology - no luck this weekend.

Unfortunately for Heather the old diggers were pretty efficient and didn't leave any gold or old campsite relics behind.

After some cold and wet days out in the field it was nice to come back to home base and be able to sit around a warm campfire.

We needed this fire to take the chill and damp out of our bones.

The photo above shows our glowing campfire in a portable, folding fire pit that we have in our kit.  This thing is great!  Because the fire sits off of the ground it does not expend too much of its energy drawing moisture out of the ground and as such it throws most of its heat out to warm the bones of those sitting around it.  When you are ready to pack it up to go home the stainless steel fire pit cleans up very nicely (and it won't rust) then folds up to be less than 40mm thick.

At the end of our shakedown weekend we were happy that nothing broke and pretty much everything worked as it should.  The fridge kept the beer cold and the sound of rain on the caravan roof from the comfort of a warm bed convinced us that this new way of camping is great and is the way of the future - well it is our future at least!

That's it for this episode of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?

Stay tuned (I promise you won't have to hold your breath as long this time) until our next post.