Time to Roam Magazine Issue 3 - June/July 2013 | Page 33

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tried + tested motorhome review

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tried + tested camper review

Budget beater
Tested Blue Tongue Campers Off-Road Trekka

The newest camper from the Blue Tongue range sets a new
standard in affordable family campers, by David Cook
Ask any Aussie camper
trailer manufacturer how
they started out and there’s
usually a common thread
to their story. Either they
weren’t happy with what they
could find already available,
thought they could do a better
job, or were keen to get
involved in a business that
was already their recreation.
Usually it’s a combination of
all three.

Karl Geddes

It was this exact trail that brought Karl
Geddes and Andrew Walter to the business of
building and selling one of the best finished
budget camper trailers on the market. A
reputationthey’ve established in a relative
short time.
Blue Tongue Campers are built in
their workshop at Kirrawee in Sydney’s
south. Previously both men worked in the
construction industry, Karl being a builder
and Andrew handling the plumbing work on
his jobs.
“We just didn’t want to make our living
doing that sort of work anymore,” Andrew
explains, “but we carry with us the builder’s
ethic of trying to use the right tools and
components on every job and providing
customer service, because we come from a
background where customer satisfaction is
paramount.
“We were all campers. Karl still has small
kids while mine have all grown up, but we
all enjoyed the pleasures of sleeping under
canvas. I’d never been involved with camper
trailers, having come from a background in
tents, but we were all looking for something

to do that we enjoyed. When we started up
four years ago there weren’t as many import
campers around and it seemed like a good
thing to get into.
“We researched the market and found
that while there were already Australian
trailers with imported canvas tents on the
market, many were of poor quality so we
set out to raise the bar. We have an aim to
make continual product improvements and
add detailed features, while some of our
competitors are reducing the quality to make
them cheaper.”
While camper trailers can range
in price from $3,500 up to $60,000
and