Innehållsförteckning för Issue 559 från Caravan World

Nissan Australia and BIG4 Holiday Parks have teamed up to the benefit of BIG4 Holiday Parks members. The alliance will see BIG4 members receive exclusive offers from Nissan, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, as well as special sporting experiences. “Nissan has a long and proud heritage in making vehicles for adventure,” Richard Emery, managing director and chief executive of Nissan Australia, said. “Our cars have been a fixture in family driveways for generations and to partner with BIG4 Holiday Parks and its passionate members is a great way to start this year’s Christmas holiday season. “BIG4 represents the best leisure parks in Australia and with 180 locations nationally its representation is similar to our own retail network in Australia.” Steven Wright, chief executive of BIG4 Holiday Parks, is equally…

BIG4 Beacon Resort in Queenscliff, Vic, and BIG4 Deniliquin in New South Wales have won the top Caravan and Holiday Parks award at their respective state Tourism Awards. It is the third year in a row both parks have taken out the awards and both parks were also inducted into the ‘Hall of Fame’ for their feats. QUEENSCLIFF “The achievement of the BIG4 Beacon Resort at Queenscliff in winning this award across three years is testament to the park’s commitment to developing superior service to their customers, and their passion for growing their park to continue to delight and amaze visitors,” Victorian Caravan Parks association chief executive Elizabeth White said. “The park now enters the Hall of Fame as a triple winner and can rightly be proud of its standard-setting…

LAURA GRAY CW’s senior editor Laura Gray has worked her way up the ranks of the magazine from CW deputy editor and production editor before landing in the big chair in 2016. Laura’s introduction to life in the great outdoors came at age two, when she was packed, by day, into a Toyota LiteAce van and, by night, into a brown canvas tent with her parents and two siblings for an extended trip around the vast playground that is northern Western Australia. But WA is a pretty hot place, and canvas tents don’t come with air-conditioners, so many years and countless camping trips later, she set her sights on caravans. PETER QUILTY You might call CW staff journalist Peter Quilty a late starter, receiving a caravanning and camping baptism in…

A gamut of emotions – homage, love and passion – will eternally ride on the Option RV Tribute Series. The Tribute Series honours Option RV’s Steve Dumaloski who, aged 32, lost a brave eight-month battle with brain cancer in August 2015. The series of Tribute vans is a fitting accolade and a moving mark of respect for a popular young man who worked alongside his father Chris and brothers Phil and Damien at the family-operated Option RV in Melbourne, Vic. Sentiment could not be listed on the scoresheet when the Tribute was being judged during AL-KO Best Aussie Vans 2016, however, the Tribute was still judged the most deserving BAV 2016 winner in the $85K-$100K category. A 6.21m (20ft 4in) ridgy-didge offroader, the Tribute unites exterior durability and resilience with…

Maths, diagnosing a problem with a computer-controlled car and hearing the phrase ‘it’s fine’: all of these things are incredibly complicated and enough to turn most people into a quivering mess trying to understand what’s going on. Now we can add towing legalities to that list as well. You see, not that long ago, towing capacities were all so low they were pretty easy to understand. If you had a braked towing capacity of 1800kg, you could damn near always get a van weighing 1800kg and hitch it to the back of your tow rig. Provided, of course, that it had its own set of brakes and wasn’t freeloading off yours. Nowadays, things are a touch more… complicated (for lack of a better, suitably PG-rated, word.) With the transition from…

Caravanning country roads – whether it’s the red backroads of the outback or hinterland highways – there is always an abundance of kangaroos, emus, goats, sheep and cattle. During a visit to Maleny Dairies, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, for a farmer’s perspective on the issue, I witnessed the problem first-hand when an intemperate driver ploughed through a herd, very nearly causing serious harm to himself, his vehicle, the stock, the handlers and your hapless correspondent. It brought the danger very close to home. ANCIENT LAW Talk to any of the automotive organisations, such as the RACV, RACQ or NRMA, and they will warn you of the dangers of coming across animals on the road. When it comes to avoiding animals, Roads and Maritime Services, NSW, advises drivers to be aware…

Kakadu National Park (NP) is huge. It embraces 20,000 sq km of diverse tropical landscapes: tidal flats and estuaries, monsoon rainforests, sandstone escarpments, savanna woodlands and riparian floodplains. While the park has a special charm when inundated by summer rains, it is most accessible in the dry season when the floods have subsided and dusty roads once again reach out to the park’s more remote attractions. And so it was, in a hot arid August, that we found ourselves exploring Gunlom Country – the hills and broken ridges around the South Alligator River. Heading south along the Kakadu Highway, with our Kimberley Karavan in tow, we turned off 48km south of Yellow Water on to the gravel access road to Maguk (aka Barramundi Gorge). This dry season, the only 4WD…

“Abandoned ghost towns, rusting equipment and machinery all contrast with the huge modern open-cuts using giant shovels and 200-tonne trucks” Squeezed between WA’s south-west corner and the well-known Pilbara and Kimberley regions in the north is the seldom-mentioned Murchison district. This outback region of Australia’s largest state has attracted little attention in recent years and is mostly a place to pass through on the way to somewhere else. This wasn’t always the case and may not remain so for much longer. Stretching from around Paynes Find in the south to just north of Meekatharra, east to Sandstone and Wiluna and west to around Gascoyne Junction, the Murchison’s boundaries are a little undefined and flexible, depending on who you talk to and which maps you look at. Around the turn of…

I’m aware that I have used these words before in this column but, as I write this, I am not long back from New Zealand. I was over there for the annual motorhome and caravan show in Christchurch, something I try to get to in order to catch up with not only the local dealers and manufacturers but also the latest trends from New Zealand, Britain and Europe. There is a considerable number of importers operating across the ditch, including some familiar names from Australia – Avida, Sunliner, Winnebago and Jayco. However, my plan didn’t quite work out as expected. Somewhat surprisingly, the show was not particularly well attended by showgoers. There was a big All Blacks rugby match happening which may have affected things on the day I attended,…

Location Old Ghan Railway, Oodnadatta Track, SA Gear Canon 1DX, ISO 200, f8, 1/250th second, 16mm lens Composition Simple, centred imagery shows the vanishing point with strong graphic lines. This naturally draws the viewer into the scene. Handy hint Using perspective and vanishing points in your photographs can emphasise the scale of a landscape and convey a narrative. Photographic fact Perspective and vanishing points historically show up everywhere in architecture and nature. Using them within a photograph brings a third dimension to a 2D art form. Multiple vanishing points create more drama and take your eye on a journey. Using a wide angle lens (such as I have in this example), exaggerates the effect. The shapes in the foreground and the graphic nature of the bridge make for an impactful…

“Break the norm with a little fishing in your own city backyard, you might be surprised what you find!” It’s no doubt living in the city can be a drag, if you let it. We all love to escape to a remote and maybe romantic destination where we can blow away the cobwebs of city living and explore our great country and sometimes ourselves. Yet our Australian capitals offer so many terrific options to fishos that you can stage your own little bit of escapism nearly any day of the week and cast away those city blues. It’s peak snapper season in Melbourne and Adelaide and we have world-class fisheries right on our doorstep. Not only is every boat ramp overflowing with keen anglers from all over the place, but…

Back in 2005, we became the proud owners of our first 4WG, the notorious Toyota Hilux Surf. People in the know warned us about the weaknesses of this grey import as it had a reputation of cracking the head, which basically means the death of the engine. But we were convinced we wouldn’t become another statistic and, for seven years we beat the odds. Until we pushed the car to its limits, while towing an offroad camper trailer, and the engine cooked in the hot weather going uphill, somewhere in southern Queensland. Such was the end of our beloved Toyota Hilux Surf. Needless to say, hubbie Chris was determined to never let this happen again so he took preventative action. After purchasing our 2001 Toyota LandCruiser Prado, he familiarised himself…

The holiday season is officially in full swing and for many, this means the big holiday trip visiting family and friends is just around the corner. But before you set off in your RV, the Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia (CMCA) would like to offer these seasonal tips to make your trip a happy and safe one. The top three contributing factors to accidents each year are driver fatigue, alcohol and speeding. It is important to not drive under the influence of alcohol, plan for rest stops and keep within the speed limit. Many accidents are caused through driver frustration, so avoid it by factoring in the delays you know you will experience at this time of year. As many of you will be travelling in or with an…

Need help with a technical or towing problem? You might think that a caravan handbrake is similar to that on your towing vehicle. It is, but it’s what is missing on a caravan compared to a vehicle that makes holding a caravan in position when unhitched a very different proposition to a vehicle. When you put on the handbrake in an automatic transmission vehicle, you also put the transmission in park (and if it’s a manual vehicle, in gear). Often you’ll find that the handbrake, if adjusted properly, will hold the vehicle without even needing the transmission to assist (although clearly you use every safety mechanism available to you; so putting a manual transmission in gear or an automatic in park, as well as pointing the front wheels against the…

Welcome back to AL-KO Best Aussie Vans for 2016. In this issue, we bring you Part 2 of Australia’s largest caravan test, including another five special vans which deserve to be on your new-van shortlist. The event kicked off at the BIG4 Wye River Holiday Park in Wye River, Vic, with the six vans competing in Part 1 of the event. After three days of judging, photography and videography, these smaller and lower-priced vans departed Wye River to go back to their factories and showrooms, and it was time for the big toys to come out to play. With five entrants across our two higher-priced categories, it was a battle we couldn’t wait to see play out. This year, we pitched the Option RV Tribute Series, the Legend Groundbreaker Ultimate…

One of the first things that came to mind when I saw Legend Caravans’ entry at Best Aussie Vans was ‘solid’, and that opinion was further enhanced when I learned the van’s moniker - the Groundbreaker Ultimate. Caravans are, by their nature, usually pretty solid objects to start with, but what sets the Groundbreaker apart from many in the crowd is its tough shape and purposeful air. It looks beefy and strong right off the bat; it has a waistline of black alloy checkerplate, common in many offroad vans; it comes with very sturdy nudge bars, Mickey Thompson tyres (including two spares on the rear bumper) and an impressive black, white and burgundy colour scheme. And that’s not to mention the other offroad essentials like the DO35 hitch, mesh stoneguard…

There’s no doubting that Sunland’s entry into 2016 AL-KO Best Aussie Vans - the Patriot SEL-X – is an immediate eye-catcher! The striking outback scene wrapped around the van is impossible to miss, and the front of the van, with its signature Sunland shape, ensures it grabs attention. That is all intentional, of course. Sunland buyers like to stand out from the crowd and the vans’ points of difference are what their buyers love about them. Despite all of that, however, some of the Patriot SEL-X’s best bits are hidden a little deeper and you have to look under the skin to discover them. Sunland Caravans has gained a reputation in the caravan industry for testing and applying not only new methods of caravan construction but also using new technology…

While the sensible heavy-duty tow vehicle choice is a turbodiesel 4WD, there comes a time when you don’t need or want to be sensible. If you’ve done well in your career and have the money to spend on a luxury petrol SUV to tow with, why not? Enter the Lexus LX570, a large, solid, luxury SUV wagon dripping with all the baubles you could possibly want and a healthy 5.7L V8 engine to flatten any hill when towing. With a 3500kg/350kg towing capacity, the big Lexus is as good as it gets for lugging a big van along. ATTRIBUTES The second-generation LX570 landed here in 2008 and is based on the Toyota LandCruiser 200. In early 2016, the LX570 had a significant upgrade. Externally, Lexus says that only the roof…

THE TOW TUG GROSS VEHICLE MASS (GVM) Probably the most recognised figure, GVM is the absolute most your tow rig can legally weigh. It includes every bit of luggage, accessories and passengers as well. If you’re at GVM already and stop off for a sneaky meat pie it could be enough to push you into illegal territory. GROSS COMBINED MASS (GCM) A little like GVM, Gross Combined Mass takes into account your trailer not just your tow rig. Things like water in your trailer’s water tank and gas cylinders on the drawbar will all eat into your GCM. This is one to watch. TARE MASS Otherwise known as Kerb Weight, Tare Mass is the weight of your tow rig ready for road completely unladen. It excludes passengers or any accessories…

Right now, a caravan sits somewhere by a stream, in a park, or in the shadow of a mountain range. Wherever it is, those inside probably feel safe – secure in the knowledge that they’re having the time of the lives, exploring the world. This is what caravanning is about, but the trick is to make sure thieves don’t interrupt these precious moments by stealing your caravan or anything from inside it. Caravan Industry Association of Australia chief executive Stuart Lamont said: “The thing travellers need to keep in mind is that you need to be just as security conscious when you are travelling as you are in your own home.” At face value, the idea that your big, heavy caravan could be stolen seems ridiculous. But, the truth is,…

A natural gem nestled at the foot of the Yorke Peninsula, Innes National Park (NP) treats visitors to spectacular coastal scenery, fantastic bushwalking and fascinating history. Driving into the park, every hill rewards with a different view of the rugged and wild coastline – on a clear day, you can even see Kangaroo Island in the distance. This beautiful but treacherous coastline has claimed many lives, with the rusting remains of the Ethel a testament to the dangerous conditions. A variety of campgrounds dotted around the park cater for travellers with all kinds of rigs. Stenhouse Bay, on the northern edge of the park, has a large number of sites suitable for caravans and generators are allowed. The more popular Pondalowie campground, affectionately known as ‘Pondie’ and more centrally located,…

Sometimes destiny meets you head on; circumstances blindside you and all your groundwork and cautions are blasted away and your survival becomes as much a matter of luck as of preparation. For Canberra’s Bev Flynn, and her helplessly-watching husband Ryan, one of those moments came during a caravan trip south to Melbourne in February 2016. You’d think all possible major concerns were covered. The Flynn’s 21ft 6in dual-axle Elite caravan was just five years old. It had been meticulously maintained and had just gone through an all-points check, as had the tow vehicle, the couple’s 70 Series LandCruiser, before setting off. They were heading to Apollo Bay on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road to meet up with some old friends for a few weeks’ break from their busy construction business. Bev…

Waking up on the thin mattress inside my little pop-up tent moments before the sun rose, I marvelled at the strange sounds of the African bush. There was the sort of cacophony of bird calls you expect back home but they were sung by a totally different choir. I’d slept well, too, very well for an old bloke a half inch off the ground. Either the Kalahari sand is softer than ours or Jaco Nell’s supply of local red wine had plenty of effect. ‘Breakfast was on the brai’ as they say roughly three times a day in Africa. So far, in the first three or four days, the nearest thing to a vegetable I’d eaten had been a leaf flicked through the car window. And us Aussies pride ourselves…

For some, upgrading from a camper trailer to a caravan is like stepping into the great unknown, as you have no idea how it will affect your touring experience. Will it affect where I can go? What impact will it have on towability? What will it add to my fuel costs? These are all common questions. Many people fear change, it is a natural human reaction, after all. So I thought I’d dig a little deeper into these questions and reflect on my own experience. SIZE We’ll assume your vehicle can legally and safely tow your new caravan. Starting with the bleeding obvious, a caravan is physically larger and heavier than a camper trailer. It will take longer to accelerate and will require more road to stop when it comes…

QLD GOLD COAST CARAVAN & CAMPING EXPO Mar 3 Nab yourself a bargain and uncover the latest camping and RVrelated innovations and trends on display at hundreds of stands in a relaxed coastal setting of Carrara. Metricon Stadium, Carrara, www.caravanqld.com.au GATTON STREET SPRINTS Mar 18-19 Catch all the action as four cylinders, booming V8s, AWDs and sports cars race through Gatton’s Industrial area, with a burnout competition Saturday night. Gatton, www.downsmotorsportclub.com.au NOOSA FESTIVAL OF SURFING Mar 4-11 It’s all pure stoke with longboard, stand-up paddle, tandem and finless competitions with amateur, pro, underage and 70+ years divisions.www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com FEAST OF THE SENSES Mar 23-28 Spend six days indulging the sense with exotic tropical fruits, produce, seafood and gourmet treats of the Innisfail region on offer. Innisfail, www.feastofthesenses.com.au NSW DUNEDOO BUSH POETRY…

Caravan World and sister publication Camper Trailer Australia have a brand new home after Adventures Group Holdings Pty Ltd (Adventures) took ownership from global publishing giant, Bauer Media on December 1, 2016. The new Adventures portfolio includes these well-respected mastheads and websites plus Travelin.com.au, Turu.com. au and TradeRVs.com.au Adventures chief executive Rob Gallagher said great content would be the defining feature of the new business. “The Adventures business is steeped in tradition but will not be a traditional publisher,” Gallagher added. “The new ownership group is genuinely excited by the opportunity to work in a field they’re passionate about – and to also learn the business of media and content from the great team already in place.” Key CW personnel including Senior Editor Laura Gray, Field Editor Malcolm Street and…

David Gilchrist David Gilchrist is a writer, filmmaker and, most recently, broadcaster. His writing has appeared in publications such as Caravan World, Australian Geographic, the Sydney Morning Herald, the New Zealand Herald, The Independent (London) and RM Williams Outback magazine. David has provided films for the ABC and the National Museum of Australia, and broadcast as a correspondent for 612 ABC Brisbane. He is also a Hear and Say community champion, promoting work helping deaf children hear. He is the author of two books, Life in the Saddle and Raising the Bar. Your favourite place in Australia to visit and why? Usually the places I like are a combination of natural beauty, interesting people and good coffee. I have fond memories of Kakadu, The Whitsundays, western Queensland and north western…

LEAKING AND STAINING I have an old Jayco caravan with alloy panels and it is starting to leak through the roof somewhere. There are stain marks on the back corner on the ceiling near the bed. The van has been laid up for a few months, but I was hoping to get it on the road after Christmas and wanted to give it a go fixing it myself. Any tips on how to do this? Kerry Richards Via email Have a look up on the roof at the aluminium cladding joins, especially at the J-mould (the J-mould is the edging that seals between the roof cladding and the side cladding). You are looking for a break in the mastic or silicon seal. Usually it is really obvious, with a gap…

Value for money Taking everything into account, does this van offer good value for money? How many features are included, and what are the dimensions of the van? Is it a lot of van at a good price and does it give buyers what they’re paying for? Self-sufficiency Is this van suitable for extended periods of remote touring, or a couple of days of free camping? Setting up and hitching up Easy or unnecessarily fiddly? Suitability for intended touring How does the van perform in its intended purpose, and is it adequately fitted out and built for the purpose? Layout Is the van visually appealing inside, and has enough thought gone into the layout for easy, convenient touring? Is there enough storage, and is it designed sensibly? Quality of finish…

In the lineup of caravans present at AL-KO Best Aussie Vans 2016, Winnebago’s Mossman B was practically in a category of its own. The majority of the other contenders were offroad caravans and none, except the Mossman B, had a slide-out. And that led to another refreshing difference – the Mossman B’s east-west bed which sits in the slide-out. While it was up against two offroad vans in this category, the scoring criteria allows the judges to score each van on its own merits. It may not have the same offroad features but what’s more important to me is how the van stacks up for the purpose for which it was built. In this case, it’s an on-road van with some rough-road capability and plenty of interior living space. I’ll…

While many caravan manufacturers are adopting elements of new technology to build their vans, none appears to have done as much as Queensland’s Zone RV to incorporate high-tech design and manufacturing processes into the build of its caravans. The results of AL-KO Best Aussie Vans’ (BAV) debutante Zone RV’s investment in technology can be plainly seen in its BAV contender, the Z-20.6 Off-Road. The drawbar is the first thing you notice - at first glance, it looks bent like a banana - surely that can’t be right, you’d think. Yet this drawbar is no mistake - it’s the result of hours of CAD testing stress points and finding the best way of ensuring good ground clearance (especially at the crucial point just past the drawbar) while also putting the hitch…

There are many good tow vehicles, but fewer great ones. These are what we at Caravan World consider the 10 best towing vehicles in 2016. We have broadened the scope for this year’s list to include any vehicle we’ve tow-tested and that is still on sale in 2016, provided it has not undergone any significant upgrade since tested. The Top 10 have been benchmarked against their ability to tow in city stop-start driving, freeway cruising, hill climbing and descending and on rough secondary roads. Ride smoothness, performance, stability and fuel economy are all considerations. Mirror design is assessed for suitability with the same mirror-mounted towing mirrors. Coupling up the caravan, the ease of such an operation is assessed, including how accessible the towball, trailer electrical connector and shackle eyelets are.…

We’ve regularly heard about them: manufacturer’s rallies (an arranged camping event for a specific brand of camper trailer or caravan). However, we Sandgropers are rather independent at the best of times. And the fact our camper is designed for remote offroad travel away from the crowds, we weren’t too sure how successfully the concept would translate. Wow, were we in for a surprise! We were planning a shakedown trip of our shiny new Australian Off Road Quantum Super Camper. We’d normally travel with my parents, but they were tied up on the farm and we were itching to get out and put the new girl through her paces. Most of the AOR owners we’d bumped into on the road seemed to be a likeable enough bunch, but there had been…

You’ve finally arrived at your camp destination. You hop out of the vehicle and immediately cringe as you realise you’re not going to have the place to yourself. With the high-pitched buzzing of mosquitoes zinging around your ears, it won’t be a quiet night. The least that you’ll endure is the intermittent slapping of skin and yelps of irritation as your fellow campers take mozzie eradication into their own hands. Of more concern is the prospect of mosquito-borne diseases, as you ask yourself: “What did dad tell me about Dengue fever, encephalitis, Ross River virus and Barmah Forest virus?” It’s enough to put you off your T-bone steak! So how worried should we actually be about mozzies? In my view, the important thing is to be educated about the risks…

Heralded by a flurry of wet weather, spring finally arrived in southern Queensland and with it the urge to dust-off Tikay (our Nimberley Naravan) and hit the road. After lengthy consultation with an RACQ road map and a brand-new Camps ; guide, we plotted a southward course along the Country Way with a plan to visit a brace of national parks in the South Burnett, the Garling Gowns and the Jranite Belt. The weather gods were smiling as we left our home in Hervey Bay and crossed the Coast Range on winding country roads through wooded vales and sprawling cattle pastures. At the sleepy township of Nilkivan, we paused for morning tea under blossom trees at Lion’s Park off the main street (Wide Bay Highway). Across the road, an equestrian…

If you look a bit nearer home and forget elections, terrorists and world upheavals, there are still many things that make you realise how lucky we are. Only recently, I heard from a friend that her daughter’s husband had died without warning – he was only in his early 40s. Many of my friends are no longer around and I appreciate how lucky I am to still be in reasonable health, still travelling the roads of this great country, and still with a loving family and friends. Last year I spent a fair bit of time with someone who constantly interspersed their conversation with “you know”. It was a bit tiresome and led me to listen for the idiosyncrasy from other people. You know, I found it was used regularly…

Batters are thick liquid mixtures containing one or more flours. Crepes, pancakes and waffles are different varieties of thin ‘cake’ made from different batters with different ingredients. The difference between the batters used for each are, generally: Crepes do not contain either baking powder or bicarb of soda. Crepes also have a high liquid-to-flour ratio which enables the crepe batter to flow in a thin layer over the surface of the pan when cooking. A crepe batter also needs to be rested before use. As well as eggs (generally; but there are alternatives) and an acidifier, pancake batter may also contain a little bicarb of soda and has a lower liquid-to-flour ratio than crepe batter. Pancake batter does not need to be rested before use and, therefore, can be used…

When in transit on our writing trips, we are often still driving at lunchtime, and we look forward to a nice hot cup of tea, as we try not to drink excessive amounts of coffee. We preheat and fill our thermos before we leave, and open the thermos at smoko to add to the espresso shots from our 12V EspressGo (see CW526, June 2014). Despite all care, the remaining water is not hot enough for making tea by lunchtime. The Duratech 12V Car Kettle (road tested in CW528, August 2014) proved a much more convenient supply of boiling water than popping the roof on our van and turning on the gas to boil the kettle on the gas burners. However, the lack of an on/off switch meant that we had…

We’ve all had those glorious summer nights, you’ve had a cracking day, you lay your head down to rest... and your camper is like a sauna. You’d kill for a cool breeze. Relax. We may have found a solution for you, with the FANTASTIC iceO CUBE evaporative cooler. It’s dead easy to operate. Fill the reservoir from the top and switch the two-speed fan to high or low on its own, or press the cooler button for more action. The evaporative cooler’s operation is simple, with water dribbling down the honeycomb cooling the filter at the rear. The power can come from three sources: via a 240V or 12V plug if you have access to one in your camper, or the cooler’s own 12V battery. Simply choose your power source…