Everyone knows someone who has done this type of trip, and everyone picks up some great tips when they go camping etc. This page is a collation of the best tips people have given us, which we are using on our trip.

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mikey's tips

1. If you are trying to conserve water remember that urine is usually only 1/8 the waste concentration that it has to be. Thus you get to drink it 7 more times. In addition the chemicals in it mean you will never have to worry about getting a throat infection.

2. If you end up with our buddies Giardia or Cryptosporidium rather than indulging in a crappachino (a watery poo that leaves a frothy top) buy a bum plug cos that way you will have a better chance of absorbing those crucial vitamins and minerals.

3. Get a long hose pipe and keep it handy at carparks so that when you start running out of fuel - you can just steal someone elses. Plus when Neil doesn't stop sucking in time and gets a mouthfull of petrol it will provide hours of humourous fun to while away those long driving hours.

4. Kangaroos are hard - real hard. Your windscreen isn't.

Thanks Mikey...

power

Dad knows a lot about different types of power distribution, having sailed for about 46 of his 51 years. We are making a real effort to be environmentally friendly on our trip, and we don't want a loud generator annoying other happy campers.

Last Christmas Dad took us down to a place in Osborne Park, which sells solar panels and Autofridges. We are going to have a BP solar panel on the top of the roof cage, which will power a super-efficient battery. From the battery we will have a switchboard or panel which we will run all our devices off.

The main device we are concerned with is the Autofridge. The Autofridge is CFC-free, and in 32 degree heat you only need it to run for 4 hours a day to keep your food and beer cold. If necessary you can run it as a freezer as well. It's the most reliable fridge we could buy.

water storage

Norm Robinson, general manager of Morpheum, has been interested in our trip from day one, and has offered heaps of great advice over the past year. As we are going to be living out of our car for the next four months, Norm knows a great way to contain water without taking up too much car space.

Using some conduit pipe, about 50mm diameter and the connecting elbow bends you can make a tube that goes all the way around your roof cage. By putting a tap in the side of this tube, you can actually store about 50L of water outside the car.

camping shower

Norm also saw a neat trick when he was camping with some friends in Echuca once. I (Riss), being used to the finer things in life, am not interested in going without my beauty routine at all during the trip, and am really not looking forward to short showers (even though you can only have 2.5 minute shower at our place in Fitzroy). You can use the campfire to warm up your water on the spot while you have a shower.

By running a garden hose from the river up the bank, then connecting it to a copper hose that curls up underneath the campfire, you can connect this to a small pump and run the hot water up to the shower. If we are going to stay somewhere for a while, we would use this kind of set up. One of our concerns is that we have no intention of camping anywhere near a river bed when we are up north, as we don't want to get flooded out, Survivor-style.

Normally we would be using the good old solar-shower - we've bought about four.

 Email us your tips.

Last updated: 13th October, 2001