RV FEATURE
The Allsops travelled all parts of Australia , from lush tropical rainforests to remote outback areas .
We had this van built in 2001 . It was just 16ft inside , and prior to LED lights , so we put in six sets of fluoro lights . Each set had three 8W tubes and was able to be run on one , two or three tubes .
We had a foot-operated marine water pump , rather than expend power on a 12V pump . A Three-way tropical-rated fridge was included , so we could run on gas when offroad . Next came a 12V / 240V TV . Later , this was changed to a flatscreen 12V / 240V 19in LED model .
We had a portable toilet and black bag-type solar shower .
As we were writing and photographing for a caravan mag , we wanted as much room as possible inside for comfortable living and to be able to use our two laptop computers and cameras on the table , so opted not to have an ensuite .
We did have a radio / DVD player with a remote control , so we could operate it from the double island bed , but that ate a bit of power , so we mostly just used the radio for news .
We found the best use of lighting came from using just two tubes in the light over the table , and one tube in the rest , and just using one light over the bed for reading at night . The lights ran directly from the caravan battery . There were no 240V lights .
Our outside light was a 12V fluoro , later changed to a small LED . We also had a 12V fan for hot nights .
And how much power did we use ? Very little .
We normally watched about two hours of TV at night , although many nights offroad were spent relaxing around a campfire and eating outside . The fluoro lights used little more than LEDs and gave a better light .
Yes , we could last seven days without charging our one 115Ah caravan battery , and we knew that if we were running low , we could just hook up to the car and idle the motor to charge up again . We had the battery on charge when in a van park also , of course .
We kept that van for 16 years . Included in our yearly six to eight-month trips all over the country was a mixture of van parks and offroad camping , corrugated dirt roads as well as highways .
I was 61 when we had that van built , 77 when we sold it on my retirement as a travel writer / photographer , and we still felt we did not require all the bells and whistles vans have today .
Are there any other travellers today who still travel as we did ?
FREE TO FREE-CAMP
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