Ever dreamed of the open road and the freedom that comes from a fully decked-out camper? Love the thrill of modifying your own vehicle, getting your hands dirty, and learning from the inevitable hiccups along the way? Get ready to be taken on an adventure as we share our family journeys, starting from the mid-nineties with a Suzuki Vitara, followed by a camper-converted Toyota Land Cruiser, before upgrading to a technologically advanced 200 series Land Cruiser.
We'll recount the fun we had modifying our vehicles, like adding side steps, bull bars, roller drawers, roof racks, and even a long-range fuel tank. Get ready for a laughter-filled ride as we share our mishaps and lessons learned from dealing with split rims, tire tubes, and changing wheel bearings. Discover the value of understanding your vehicle, the importance of service knowledge, and how these can make your road trip experience smoother.
Transitioning from swags to a camper trailer as our family grew brought new challenges and adventures. We'll discuss how our latest setup, a 200 series Land Cruiser filled with advanced technology like drones and Starlink dishes, revolutionised our travels. You'd be amazed by the comfort and freedom our camper offers, including a stand-up fridge, luxury bedding, comprehensive kitchen equipment, and two independent power sources. So buckle up, and join us as we journey through our vehicle adventures and share practical advice from our experiences on the road.
Ever dreamed of the open road and the freedom that comes from a fully decked-out camper? Love the thrill of modifying your own vehicle, getting your hands dirty, and learning from the inevitable hiccups along the way? Get ready to be taken on an adventure as we share our family journeys, starting from the mid-nineties with a Suzuki Vitara, followed by a camper-converted Toyota Land Cruiser, before upgrading to a technologically advanced 200 series Land Cruiser.
We'll recount the fun we had modifying our vehicles, like adding side steps, bull bars, roller drawers, roof racks, and even a long-range fuel tank. Get ready for a laughter-filled ride as we share our mishaps and lessons learned from dealing with split rims, tire tubes, and changing wheel bearings. Discover the value of understanding your vehicle, the importance of service knowledge, and how these can make your road trip experience smoother.
Transitioning from swags to a camper trailer as our family grew brought new challenges and adventures. We'll discuss how our latest setup, a 200 series Land Cruiser filled with advanced technology like drones and Starlink dishes, revolutionised our travels. You'd be amazed by the comfort and freedom our camper offers, including a stand-up fridge, luxury bedding, comprehensive kitchen equipment, and two independent power sources. So buckle up, and join us as we journey through our vehicle adventures and share practical advice from our experiences on the road.
Hi everyone and welcome back. It's David and Michelle here, explorers, for our next podcast Journey With you. Today we're wanting to go through some of our vehicles and what we've had and how long we've had them for and why we made that choice and where we're up to now. And it's interesting because way back in the beginning of time, before I even had any sort of half interest that we're going to do what we've become doing, the mid 90s was my first 4A into a four-wheel drive and it was a little white Suzuki Vitara manual, a little super-duper light thing, and it got taken around Golban and Mitigong and a few places doing a little bit of four-wheel driving. And now that I look back on the experiences that I had back then and I actually didn't really have half a clue what I was really doing it was interesting how light that little car was and how capable it actually was because of its weight, but you just can't carry much with it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so we started back then but we obviously got a bit more serious and it was at a late later in the late 90s, 96, 97 time frame, we made the decision to go and do some traveling around Australia and we're trying to work out what vehicle to buy and we really had no clue other than the Suzuki Vitara's experience that had been a few years because it sold out of that and didn't even have it. So it wasn't like a continuous purchase. And then we got to the point where with the health and the other bits that we decided we were going to go away and what sort of a vehicle were we going to buy. I don't even think when we started that well, we started that did we start that whole thing with the purchase decision to go for years, or did we didn't actually know at that stage when we bought the Troopy?
Speaker 2:I do remember the whole discussion being planning a long-term touring trip, never to come back to Sydney to sell up. So we knew all of that and so we really needed something that was going to be a touring vehicle. We knew it was going to be a. We were going to live in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah, that's what I kind of remember.
Speaker 2:It was just hard because and then was it because of the lady from work that told us about the Toyota Land Cruiser Club of Sydney.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically the Michelle where Michelle was working at the time. There was a few people that were involved in the Toyota Land Cruiser Club and I think one of Michelle's friends, a work associate. You know we're obviously talking about what vehicle to buy and trips and traveling, and they kind of steered us into the Troopy path because of it, because of its reliability and suitability for the task that we were having, and it had a big internal space. We didn't actually know what Troopy were going to, what Troopy to look for. But I was just reading through the weekend paper at home one day and saw a Troopy for sale up near where we lived in Bayswater in Sydney and Bayswater, wasn't it Bays, bayview, bayview, bayswaters in WA.
Speaker 1:Bayview Bayview has been it's been too long and a bloke was selling a converted Troopy. So it was previously a Brit, brits or Hertz. It was one of those two. At the time He'd bought it off one of those. When it was finished he'd used it for a some period of time. He was selling it. We were interested in buying it. So it had a. It had a camper conversion, the standard Brits, apollo, whatever all those brands were standing for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the Barbie bus.
Speaker 1:It was the Barbie bus, yeah.
Speaker 2:It had a kitchen sink and a pop-top roof.
Speaker 1:And so we actually invested in that. And you know that was our first full-size four wheel drive, our first sort of sware into what we're going to use for our trips and traveling around. And so technically, you know standard Toyota Land Cruiser 75 series, 1-hz engine, not turbo, nothing fancy manual manual of course diesel, of course, was 1-HZ.
Speaker 1:No, no fancy diff locks, no fancy anything. It just had a camper conversion, probably had. It did have some suspension upgrades which we upgraded again after we learned what all of that really meant. And it was, it was a, it was a good car and we did all that driving training.
Speaker 1:So after we bought it, we wanted to understand what we were going to do and how we could, how we could use the thing. So, being that we bought a Toyota on recommendation from people that were Michelle's work, that were in the Toyota Land Cruiser Club in New South Wales, it kind of made it reasonably easy or logical for us to join the Toyota Land Cruiser Club in Sydney at the time and we went through all their training and it was fantastic the things that, the things that we learned in one weekend on that that, that club, full driving will and I don't think I've still been able to take the car and do things that we did that day.
Speaker 2:I remember the. What are they calling?
Speaker 1:that reverse and up that hill up the rock reverse and up a rock and perch and at the top and then trying to come back down. There was a whole heap of stuff like that it was really stall starts and it was really. That was really quite technical, so the best part of was it was eye-opening.
Speaker 1:We didn't really have much of, anyway, any experience at the time, but with their guidance and all that, yeah, and we did all this great river crossings and some great stuff with the club and that worked out quite well. And so you know, when we, when we got ourselves a bit closer to to moving and going on the trip, I decided that I wasn't really happy with all the internal fitting, fit out of the of the camper conversion that was in the pop top. So, me being me, I basically ripped it all out and put it all back together and rebuilt it again. Really I was. It was just the age of the cabinetry, it was just all getting a bit old and the door latches weren't working and some other bits and pieces needed attending to.
Speaker 1:But me being me, I tore it all out and built a whole new inside fit out, basically replicating exactly what I had, but just modernizing it, making it new. And so it was good. Engine wise 1hz I can't even remember the kilometers, but it was only fairly low. It had only done like a hundred thousand or something, and so a hundred or a hundred fifty thousand and it was really well looked after.
Speaker 1:Considering it was a an ex-high car. I was a bit nervous about that because it could have got flogged and you know, you'd never know what somebody's going to do to those sorts of cars. But realistically we did some suspension mods and some shock mods and, and realistically, from modifications in that car, that was about it. Electrically, you know, engine wise, only standard servicing. It didn't. It didn't need anything else. Yeah, it could have gone better, but it didn't need to. It was the right weight. When we also were doing that trip we mentioned in one of our previous podcasts, we actually went with the intent of being scuba driving instructors and traveling around Australia in our four-wheel drive teaching people about scuba diving. So we also got a box trailer with a, a gull-wing box trailer and I think it was called butterfly butterfly.
Speaker 2:O'Brien's butterfly trailer at the time it was built, we had it built, we had it built specifically for us.
Speaker 1:But we then put scuba made mounts and mounted scuba tanks and all sorts of gear into the into that and then, you know, then we went basically on our first trip up up to Kansan. We started our journey with a trip to Kansan and doing.
Speaker 1:Cape York with the Toyota Land Cruiser Club. So when we actually left to start all of our traveling around, we went to Kans to meet the club group, to do the Cape York trip, come back to Kans and then we continued on our merry way for the next few years and I actually remember that we did. We did the suspension replacement in Kans when we came back from the, from the, from the Cape York trip. As soon as we came back into Kans I had some problems with the shocks or something. I remember doing a suspension.
Speaker 2:I remember doing the suspension mods in the coconut carabiner park and it fell off the airbag, inlifting no I didn't have.
Speaker 1:I didn't have air jacks at the time and I was jacked up in the in the caravan park, as you do, yeah, changing, changing the shocks out and the carabiner, and and I obviously just didn't set it up well enough, didn't have a big enough jacking plate. You know all the things that you get taught big jacking plate, do this, do that. The ground seemed fairly firm but we jacked it up and you know, after the wheels off and half everything's off, of course the jack goes and slips out and the car goes thumping down onto the grass you nearly took your arm off.
Speaker 1:Oh my god and so there we also had a an exercise in what recovery gear you need to take when you go away, because I couldn't actually get the car back up on the jack because it was too low on that side to actually start lifting it again. And so the complexity came about what on earth we were going to do and someone came along with it. Someone came along, said, oh, I've got an airbag, an exhaust inflation airbag. We hadn't seen these things, we hadn't seen one of those before, so I'll give that a go. And so we blew the thing up like a big balloon and you put it up underneath the body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, airbag, so we were able to lift it up and get that going again and so, yeah, that was that was that suspension job. And you know, during our years of using that car mechanically, um, one of the things that I've learned over the years is that I do tend to service everything myself. I think I'm more fussy. You know I always get disappointed when I go and get something serviced, or someone looks at something and you get it back and it's not right and that there's nothing more annoying uh to me than that. And we've had those experiences with all our cars going for factory or non-factory servicing and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So I think you know, for those of us that are, if, if you really want to be really serious about this game, you really need to understand your vehicle. So, understanding your vehicle and how it works and what makes it tick and what you need to be capable of, depending on your situation. We travel a fair bit on our own, so I'm much more happy and much more confident to know everything about my car that I can know. Obviously, there's some things that are going to break that you can't fix on your own out in the middle of nowhere, but for everything else, I want to make sure that I'm fairly comfortable and confident, so we do tend to do everything, and so in servicing the trooper on our first trips, I remember packing wheel bearings at at at like, like now than it was, I think.
Speaker 1:I've got a picture of you doing yeah and that was way back, way back in the days, you know. So we'd be just driving along and the wheel bearings would get hot on the trailer. So I have to do a wheel bearing change the split rims is what I remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the split rims at javis bay was that I tried to. I tried to take a finger off at javis bay doing a split ring, change so and and split rims. I still see so many vehicles using them today and I and I and I still remember them and it's actually not that horrible of wheel, except that they don't look very pretty, they're not nice and shiny and and all this wonderful stuff. But from a serviceability point of view and a self maintenance point of view, it's a hell of a lot easier to swap a rim, swap a tire, on a split rim than on a, than on a standard rim and I know, because I've done enough of those of both types yeah well, when we were at marble bar there was a guy doing split rim changes in the caravan park right next to us he had a trooping yeah, yeah, oh, do you don't we?
Speaker 1:do you want me to explain how to do a split rim change?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh my god. Well, the difference is what a split rim is like all right.
Speaker 1:Well, a split rim, just just very quickly. I don't have one in front of me, so those that are watching still can't see it. Those are listening. You've probably got even less idea. But a split rim is basically, if you haven't seen one, um, there's basically a, it's the steel rim, and then the tire goes on, and then there's like a steel, an outer rim that gets placed on the outside edge and and leave it into place around the around the tire so that it's kind of locks it in, so you basically get it off. You sort of it's like a big O-ring, a big circle, a monstrous one, and you basically un-prite with pry bars and it pops off and then you can effectively take the tyre off, put the tyre back on, re-put the piece of metal back in and blow it up and bobs your uncle off. You go. You should be right.
Speaker 2:Oh, so that's right, they're tube tyres, so this means that you're when you have a flat tyre. I'd forgotten all of this. The whole concept is you're able to remove the tyre from the rim, put a tube in and fix your flat by fixing the tyre itself, Whereas these days you take the whole rim and it's heavy and you've got to carry a second whole wheel replacement is what you do.
Speaker 1:These days, don't you?
Speaker 2:So that's what it is, so our spares? I remember that they're all these folded up bits of tyre and tubes under the seat because we didn't have a dual wheel carrier, we had a single wheel carrier.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And we didn't carry a second ring on a roof rack or anything, no, but we also hadn't learned that lesson to have the trailer have the same rim set up as the vehicle.
Speaker 1:Oh really, so we hadn't learned that lesson back then? We? Were just in our 20s yeah we were just young and didn't really know. Now we know that all of our trailers if we have them have the same rims and tyres as the car, so that we've got multitudes of spares. So things can be swapped around a lot easier. So they're the things we learned.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we can, but it did save weight and then it is a good option for that, for those that are still listening.
Speaker 1:We use alloy rims, like most people, alloy and steel rims on our cars and canfers but I still carry tubes. I've got tubes in the car now because I can always put one of those in and fix even fairly significantly large slices in the tyre and rims. Take it off, put its tube in it, tape it or whatever you've got to do to protect it piece of plastic, whatever you've got to do to cover a gaping, great big hole and put it back together. So tyre tubes is always a good thing to carry, but obviously to get now to get the tyres off non-split rims is a bit painful because they've got to be glued and then yeah, you don't do that when you're out in the bush.
Speaker 1:No. And then if you're trying to inflate, well, we've done a few. But if you're trying to inflate a non-split rim just on an air compressor, you'll have a hard time getting the bead to set unless the tyre is really oversized in the width because it just won't pop out. So a tubeless tyre, which most of them all are now it's sealed by being pressed out to the edge. If you can't press it out to the edge, it's really hard to make them seal. So if you put an inner tube in it and blow it up, then that's a heap easier to ensure that you're going to seat the bead and make the thing driveable At the end of the day, if the situation requires that you do anything to make the vehicle move to get you from wherever you were to where you've got to go. But you know, the Troopy was a reliable machine. We never it did it ever let us down, ever any time.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I can't recall.
Speaker 2:All I recall I mean we are going back a lot of years now but we had a lot of tyre issues that a lot of that, I think, was because of the harshness of those leaf suspensions and the front end was hard when we started. When we went to the next car with coil front suspensions with the 80 series. I remember as a passenger such a dramatic difference in comfort and was like oh, why didn't we do this before? And then we've never really had tyre issues ever since. Oh, you shouldn't say that.
Speaker 1:Oh, why did you say that? Oh well, anyway. Yeah, so you know the old 75, leaf spring suspension in the rear and all that sort of stuff. We drove that for a few years. We did the bulk of our main trips, the bulk of those pre-explorized trips. We actually hadn't started explorers at this stage. This was two years of traveling around.
Speaker 2:Oh, that had done the Simpson Desert twice.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I know, but we had all the golf and all the Kimberley the whole everything, the whole of Australia, twice BE before the Corrod this was back then.
Speaker 1:So we did that touring around, and after we'd and in a previous podcast I recall that we mentioned that we sat on the banks of the river in Aminka and made up this business plan and decided to come to Perth. So we decided to come to Perth and we still had the Troopy and the trailer and we were able to move some stuff over to here as we popped over, and within five minutes Michelle was pregnant and so I had to throw that in, because that was the reason why, really, the Troopy was on a nine month wicket. We really needed to make sure that we could have a baby in a car, and the Troopy was a two seat full camper conversion A two door a full camper conversion.
Speaker 2:Two door full camper conversion it had two registered seats.
Speaker 1:It wasn't even really registered to take three, so unfortunately the Troopy needed to go back then and that was 2000,. Was that 2000?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, Leon was born in October 2000. And I think, the first time you picked me up from the hospital with the AD series the first time I'd seen it.
Speaker 1:It was in the AD series picking you up from the hospital. So we timed it right that we did that swap over and we bought it from a local car dealer here in Perth, south of the river, and that was all quite good. I think it was second out of the time we bought it. It had, think, 40,000 K's on the clock and we've got a decent deal, even though it seemed really expensive to us being young and having just arrived in Perth, having travelled for two years without really having an income, without really having got to marry.
Speaker 2:It was a 93 year old vehicle at the time. Because it was a year 2000 and we bought a 1997 GXL, the 97, yeah.
Speaker 1:GXL diesel, manual, non-turbo, 1-hz engine, the same thing that I was fairly used to with the 75. Almost everything was identical, except that it had this plush and luxurious coil sprung suspension. And, as Michelle said, we got into that and it was like, oh my goodness, coil spring suspension, such luxury, yeah, such luxury. But like whenever you change over from anything and you've had a long term good relationship with one vehicle and then you're moving into the next one, there's all those unknowns. So we've bought this pretty much stock standard GXL. It didn't have, it didn't have.
Speaker 2:It didn't have race suspension or anything.
Speaker 1:It had nothing, it was just a standard.
Speaker 2:That's right. It had nothing. It didn't even have side stairs. It didn't even have side stairs, All bar nothing.
Speaker 1:So we had the Xploros business model. We sort of started that in 2000 and got this car in 2000. And so obviously needing it for the baby was the main thing. Solve that, that was easy, doesn't need much mods to put a car seat in. So that worked out quite well.
Speaker 1:But then came the whole exercise of what we were going to do and obviously being early on in the business and just setting up Xploros, we decided that we would see if, again early in internet probably too early for all the people that we started talking to but we decided that we should see if we could do feature stories on the vehicle setup.
Speaker 1:So vehicle setup stories and of all the things that we bought and bought or were supplied and the deals that we made to try and get a bit of advertising revenue and all do fittings to the car. But it was also very important to us that we had the right stuff put into the car. We're not competitive four-wheel drivers. We don't need it to climb the biggest hills, we don't need it to go the fastest. It doesn't even have to be the prettiest, it doesn't have to have the fanciest accessories, it's just got to do the job. Back then, obviously early days in the business we were able to get the side steps and the bull bars and we did got that stuff from ARB as the side guards, which I really do like and I kind of miss them the rails that come down from the bull bar to the side skirts to give you some tree deflection protection as you're driving through roads that haven't been driven over for a few years. So I've kind of missed that in the newer ones.
Speaker 1:We had the roller drawers, the Outback roller drawers yeah, the ones that we put in and the fridge went on top and then we had roof racks and the roof bars, the long range of fuel tank.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I fitted. It became apparent that we were going to do the canning and some of these longer trips, and so Fuel tanks and stuff became an issue. So we put in a long range of fuel tank At the time, got that shipped over and put that in, and then we traveled around, we did the canning, we did a few other, we did a few other trips Mechanically again, servicing it all myself Every six to twelve months or whatever. Oil chain schedules of bits, of pieces. Okay, so we, we installed this long-range fuel tank and a lot of other stuff was given to us. You know, as we started publishing these articles and some of these review stories, a lot of other suppliers and people in the game Just thought that they'd have a go and we were offered all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1:And I remember we, we were offered a twine hot water shower unit and that was great. So we, we, we decided to put that in into the, into the 80, and so that's the. Those showers is just a. I'll just give you a quick explanation. It uses there, the cars radiator hot water To heat the water that you pass through a coil and it heats it up on the way through so you can have a hot shower Out out in the bush was just with a water pump and the showers. The shower is kind of important because, you know, in all of years of us traveling with bits and pieces, for a few years we didn't have a shower and then then you're able to have a shower and it was interesting because we didn't actually use the shower that much and, as I recall, I think we actually also might have had one in the troop. He didn't know, I can't remember. Anyway, we had a shower in the 80 and that was great and you know. So we just kept.
Speaker 1:We in those early days of that car. A lot of this equipment came into us fairly early. I did have the bars and rails and steps and stuff fitted, a RB that was part of the, the dealing that they wanted to do fuel tanks and all the other bits and pieces. Again, I like to do it so that I know what I've put in, what I can take out and what I can adjust if something does happen to go wrong with any of those systems. And you know, we're also learning about batteries and solar power and charging and and and all of those more complicated issues in Making yourself self-sufficient to go out there and also how to pack the thing. So One of the things about converting into the 80 and, as I said, we had it when our first child was was born and we only sold it. What year did we sell that car?
Speaker 1:2019 was it 19?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's when we got the 200.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, so we had this 80.
Speaker 2:We had it for 19 years.
Speaker 1:We loved it and we.
Speaker 1:We we gauge this great appreciation for it. The only thing I hated about it and it didn't really become as apparent, but we got it we bought a boat. We bought a fairly large boat at one point and we were wanting to take that on some trips. So one of the things that we Really like, we really like going up to Ningaloo station in that, that whole area of the coast there. But we realized that not a great place to go without a boat, a bit a bit of a sad place to go without a boat. So it wasn't that we wanted to go there that we bought the boat, but we decided that we wanted to buy a boat. And then the complexity is of then towing around a fairly significantly Heavy boat. It wasn't a small boat 6.2 meters long, inboard engine at weight, a fair bit great luggage trailer, but quite a heavy, quite a heavy piece of equipment to pull around on the old GXL1-HZ.
Speaker 2:So on a single axle trailer.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I don't know the.
Speaker 2:Ningaloo road.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about the single axle trailer. So we will, we'll buy in this fairly large and reason we heavy boat and I think even probably the day that I picked it up because we bought it from the Mandra boat show and I'll bring it home and it became apparent that the old 80s 1-HZ was. It's a little bit, it was a little bit difficult to tow this boat around the place. Yeah, it was a bit gutless and you know, towing it up, towing it up the Great Eastern here, up up the hills, it's like going up into the Blue Mountains over east. It's sort of a hill. You know you'd be backing down into third Doing 60 kph up these hills and stuff.
Speaker 2:There's no power.
Speaker 1:And so there was no power. So that was a that was a bit disappointing Grateful drive vehicle that could do everything on its own. But as soon as we added the boat we obviously had some complexity. But you know, we were doing. We also had to deal with the also what. What did we do to fix that problem? We bought a turbo. A turbo. We bought a Denco diesel kit at the time. What did Denco? We did a deal with Denco something happened.
Speaker 1:Denco supplied us with one and and, like most things, came with a new exhaust, new new 3-inch exhaust system, new headers and the turbo and all the plumbing, drawing holes and sumps to put the oil feeds in and everything. Of course I did all that as, as I've already said, trying to do everything on my own, and that worked quite well. I was surprised. I wasn't surprised it actually, it actually worked. We only set the boost up fairly low, it was only like a 10 psi boost, and then, yeah, we've got a Exhaust gas temperature gauge in there to measure it. So if I'm climbing up the hills for half an hour or something and the turbo is winding and the engine temperature is going up, at least we could monitor, that being that it wasn't a factory turbo engine.
Speaker 1:So and it didn't, and it didn't have any computers and it wasn't technological like that, which is just perfect. The least we might all have a computer in our hand, we might carry a computer on the phone, but geez, you don't really want too many computers in the car if you can avoid it in these sorts of cars anyway, because there's always stories you hear about about computers arguing with you being able to start the car anyway. So the other thing that we'd learned over the years was how to pack this car. You know so how we would stack the drawers in the back and how we would use the cargo barrier. We had a half-height cargo barrier and roller drawers. We had an inside water tank that was custom-made stainless steel that sat above the wheel 65, 65 litres or something and it sat on top of the wheel arch on the right hand side and we when the roller drawers was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had two kids all in the back, so we had two kids and a dog and and we were touring around all over the place. We were doing a lot more travel than we have in the last few years. Obviously, as a kid's got to high school years Travelling, it reduced a little bit. Also, business changed a little bit.
Speaker 2:But you know, with that car we traveled a lot when the kids were little.
Speaker 1:We quickly became very comfortable in that car and when we were doing more serious four-wheel-driving without the boat. You know every we do a trip up the coast every year with the boat. When we're doing more desert or outback regional trips, you know we're taking two kids, the two of us. Just in the 80 series we had a roof rack bar, a rhino roof bar box thing, and we basically throw three or four swags, oz tent. You know well, we slept in swags and Oz tent pretty much for that entire period, 2018 or 19 years when we had that, when we had that car. They were our swag and tent years and We've done everything in swags and tents in that car for years and to be able to jam the kids and ourselves All of our swag sleeping gear, no travesty equipment, recovery gear, everything we had.
Speaker 1:I would have hate to have thought about the GCM stuff on that vehicle.
Speaker 2:It was never a never a thing.
Speaker 1:It didn't even exist didn't exist but we had so much we were able to carry so much and do so much. But you know it was hard Getting up on the roof every day to take down two or three swags and ostensis and stuff. It takes us total after a period of time but we happily travelled like that for that whole 20 years, grew a great love for that 80 series. I still love the 80 series. I'm still disappointed I sold the 80 series but you know we do the things that we do at the time because I didn't need to have two full drives. But from a nostalgic point of view I love the 80 series. It was such a great car. But you know, like all good things or like all things, it comes to an end. One of the things that became more apparent to me and Michelle obviously it's getting harder to do all this packing up. I've had a few sporting injuries in the last 10 or 15 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah back and your neck yeah back problems and stuff and I'm so sure I can't help you with the single thing with that roof rack. I think the liability there came that whilst I'm fit and strong and active and can help, I'm just so high challenged that that whole concept of having so much on the roof rack was no good. And yeah, we had two teenage kids, but you know, it's just, they just got too big the amount of food and we only wanted one angle fridge. We had the 40 litre fridge. That was it for the four of us. And yeah, we had really reached the limits of capacity of what you could carry without a trailer and the only trailer we wanted to take was the boat. You can't tow another camper trailer behind the boat.
Speaker 2:We were lucky we had friends to meet up with at Ningaloo other families and so one trip we towed their boat and they took their camper trailer when the huge big awning and we lived together communally there. We've had other family trips that are like that with other families as well. So the kids had most of their upbringing on Ningaloo beach for three or four weeks at a time and you know our thing was just to get there. And then we had the boat and so we were then out fishing and using the boat and we were stacked up with all the firewood and the water to get there and then when we came home it was empty or other than being full of fish again.
Speaker 2:That was that era and then that was it. We eventually realized that it was just too much effort. I remember after one Ningaloo trip we came home for two weeks, we packed off and then we went to Maralinga. So we dropped the boat off, changed the whole packing again from a coastal trip to a desert trip and then we went off to Maralinga I think that was 2015. And there was a group of us there. So that was a totally different setup, but that same car and it was awesome with the kids and all.
Speaker 1:But again we were back to the swags and taking things on, you know, to get onto the roof rack and stuff to get things out. I had a system where I stand on the sidestep, put a foot onto the tyre, I'd open the rear little side window quarter window, put my foot on the window sill and then I could get up onto the roof rack, because we didn't have a ladder and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, and then we get older and things get harder and we get lazier.
Speaker 2:Well, we had a period of time where the high school got in the way. Yeah, so the high school got in the way, and we don't like school holiday bookings and all that, and we weren't using the boat.
Speaker 1:So the boat, we ended up selling the boat. I think, like a lot of people, you buy this boat. You use it for a number of years six, seven, eight years you use it all the time and then it spends more time in the driveway than it does in the water. So it was time for us to move that on. And then, yeah, we'd kind of identified that the camping and stuff was getting harder with the swags. And, however, for the work that we do moving every day the swags is easy, it's quick and you just throw it off the roof and throw it on the roof, and throw it off the roof and throw it on the roof. But over time the swags get bigger. We have a big double swag and then you have a couple of single swags for the kids and then the kids' swags get king singles, yeah because they got bigger, and then they get bigger.
Speaker 1:So everything gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger and the kids get bigger. So the packing becomes a bit more of a problem. And then we get to the end of school and the kids are coming with us as much and stuff anymore.
Speaker 2:And I know we deliberated about what do we do, how do we make this transition to the next stage? And you were. We didn't want a caravan, we didn't want to change our ability to move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the four-wheel driving concept, to be able to just go anywhere and not have that liability. If we were four-wheel driving, we wanted something, but we needed the comforts. And then it was like well, are the kids? Are we going to put all this money into some camper trailer? Which one? Are the kids even going to come with us? They're getting to that point where they were like, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the friends of ours had a camp right and if you've ever seen one of those that made here at WA and now are fold out sort of camper and they've been quite popular and we'd spent some time with them and that kind of worked out quite well. It was probably more catered which it is quite well catered to actually have a couple of kids because when you fold it out there's two side bunks and the main bunk Outside kitchen and that sort of stuff which we weren't sure about.
Speaker 2:I've just realized it was that trip to Maralinga when my dad brought his ultimate camper trailer and we saw it. Yes them traveling it correct.
Speaker 1:So the Maralinga trip that we did that Michelle was alluding to earlier, we met up with Michelle's parents there and they had the 200 series and an ultimate camper and so we we got to have a look at their ultimate and and Follow it a bit, because we we did some touring around the Ambeville Highway and areas up around there and through the lots of desert.
Speaker 2:There's a great Victoria desert, and then it was pretty capable and it was very capable.
Speaker 1:We were watching it and and thought, oh, that's, that's a pretty good choice. And Then it was about six months or a year later or so, when the old man decided to.
Speaker 2:About three years. So we had this huge break where you were broken and we didn't have the right setup and we just said we're not going and the kids ended up doing their own thing. We just did different things, were really involved in the triathlon for a while there, but you were then broken. It was just, work was happening. We just had a period of time where it was Complicated. We didn't have the right gear, we weren't ready to make the next decision until a decision made itself upon us and dad sent me an email saying, because mum had been unwell, they decided their camping and traveling times were over. They were Putting up a touring package of the 200 series and the ultimate for sale and he wanted to advertise it on our Classified on the explorers website and wanted me to have a look at it and give him a bit of feedback. Was a wording right? What's the pricing right? Was it a good idea? Did I think it would work? And I went oh, hang on a minute.
Speaker 1:We might be interested. We had a chat and decided that I'd just jump on a plane and fly over to Sydney and drive back a 200 series Land Cruiser and ultimate buying it, buying it off the father-in-law. So you know the best part about that Well it was a both of them brand new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a 2008 model 200 series.
Speaker 1:So pre DPF, pre KDSS, pre all that new fancy stuff that they put into these cars that I don't want. So, from a car point of view, it was missing the features that I wanted, which was great. Hey, it was missing the features that I'd. So it was missing the features that I didn't want, which was great. It was Reasonably old, but when, when we bought it, had 90,000 K's on it and it and it was already 15 years old or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we bought it in 2019.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it had 96,000 K's on it. So when I flew to Sydney, it had hardly ever been used. It had been serviced every six months. It so we so, yeah, that was. That was basically what happened.
Speaker 1:I jumped on a plane and flew over to Sydney, and the father-in-law and I drove it back. He came with me to show me how to set up the ultimate. He could use an excuse for it, camping away with me for a week and we obviously get on well enough that that was capable of being done, and and it was a great trip and we were able to. I was able to learn about the ultimate and do some bits and pieces. Not that we were doing much forward driving. We did a few bits, did a camp out a hole on the Holland track, a little bit on our way back through. That was on the Holland track, was at the mountain. It's just down the road from the height and turn off. I can't remember exactly what the hills called, but we can't there anyway. So that was a great trip. And so then we were the proud owners of a vdj 200 twin-turbo, v8 diesel Land Cruiser, so we had plenty of power now. Yeah, didn't we?
Speaker 2:It was huge on the inside and it felt like a moving lounge.
Speaker 1:In comparison to the 80, it was really posh and big and so again, we also knew the history of the car in the campus so we were fairly confident that that was all going to be good and the ultimate camper Was then going to give us that potential to be able to do these camps without me happy to get on the roof and and all that's stuffing around. It's going to make it a little bit more comfortable and you know, like like anything, again it was another change. So we're changing from the car that the 80 series that was really, really capable, really really proven, and I knew every inch of that was also manual, and so the new car.
Speaker 2:We were a bit concerned. Yeah, it was like.
Speaker 1:So we were going to have all this, all this learning to do and you know, obviously the kids were. The kids were gone, weren't coming with us as much anymore, so being able to just throw a swag in if one of them does want to come was quite easy. And having the home base, the ability to set up a camp for a night or two and move, move it fairly easily, the ultimate is a reasonably ultimate solution. It worked really well for us and and and that daily move wasn't so bad one of the things you know and Obviously, having to learn to set up the 200 a bit differently and then servicing the 200 that I decided to give the standard regular servicing. You know, send the car into Toyota for the first few services and I Was just I don't even know if I want to remember the story, but the very first one.
Speaker 1:We bought the 200 and we got it here and I've cracked it one of the CV boots on the way over. I don't know how I did it, but one of the CV boots had torn open as we were driving home and that was out out near Baladonia. Some way somewhere out there we noticed that all the grease was spewing out inside. Anyway, we still were driving at home, it wasn't. It wasn't the end of the world. The CV boots no grease.
Speaker 1:I was going to be replacing it when I got home anyway, because I needed to be replaced because it was bugged. So it didn't really matter that we drove it. We drove another 1500 K's a bit like that, which was no problem, and I'd do it again if I had to. Anyway, so we get the car back and, of course, to register it here, you've got to put it through the inspection, to transfer it from New South Wales to WA. So it's got to go through a pitch test. So they got to weigh everything. So the camp has got to be weighed, the trip cars got to be weighed. You've got to have it all certified, do all the checks and all the balances and get everything done. And I knew I was going to have this procedure done, so I'll get the car looked out at Toyota and they can do that.
Speaker 1:CV boot because I'd only just owned it and I hadn't really looked at it and I didn't. I had no confidence in what I was going to do, so I thought I'll get them to do that. Do the first service do their 200 point safety inspection or whatever it was. So at least then I know that it should all be Sorted and then when I go for it to be pitted it should just all be no problem and it should have all worked. Little loan, it didn't.
Speaker 1:So you know, they changed the CV boot but they'd left all the grease through and strewn everywhere under the car and in fact it was dripping off the car when it went for the pit inspection and they said it would fail because of the amount of grease it's dripping off this thing and pouring off. They didn't even bother to clean it. They didn't. They twisted one of the rear brake lines so there was a. They taken the caliper off and twisted it and put it back on, so it had a kink in it and that was a fail as well. So there was like three or four things that were all part of the safety inspection that I was paying a significant amount of money for by the time, the CV boot and the and a service and all the other bits and pieces. It was still thousands of dollars of work and then you take it to have it pitted and it fails straight away.
Speaker 1:So it went back straight out straight from the pit shop straight back to Toyota with a big complaint and saying fix it. And they did. And then we got that sorted. But you know, I don't think I've ever been really satisfied whenever I've had my car looked out by anybody other than me. So you know, then, that in line brings us into doing it myself. So you know, recently I've just done the water pumps and all the other bits and pieces of servicing.
Speaker 1:So the only thing about working on, you know, the 200 series Landcruiser is the engine's massive and you open the bonnet and it's just all engine and the car is pretty high. So you know, doing a water pump, you kind of on your knees on the ball bar and trying to reach in. So it's kind of awkward, it's kind of interesting. But you know, we've had this. We've had this car for a few years now. We've done a few trips with the ultimate. We've loved it, we've had the only. The only thing that we, the only thing that we're probably missing, that we think we could do with, would be some def locks Rear, rear and possibly both and that's only be, only just to pull us out of, only just to pull us out of the crap when we've got the camper trailer on and we're doing something that.
Speaker 1:Should we be doing it or not doing it? I don't know. You can argue the car Flooring soft riverbed at midday going.
Speaker 2:What's over there? The trap on the map goes there. What must be something on the other side? So we've got to give it a go and in fact, the road doesn't continue on and we're stuck in the poo, have to turn around and doing a u-turn in the middle of a sandy riverbed up in the Pilbara's no fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so there's a few issues like that and you know, because we're doing the work that we're doing and trying to Check all the roads and make sure they're open and and everything that's published on the, on the, on the maps and in our apps Is accurate, as accurate as possible. You know, we basically try and drive all these things, so us moving around a fair bit is important Getting familiar with the car, getting the service. In getting all that done, the diff locks would be handy. We just have to use the winch more. So we tend to winch more than diff lock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that last trip we did was really interesting with this car because we've never had a front-mounted electric winch. So this 200 series came with that and we obviously we've got two sets of max max tracks one we carry on top of the camper, one we carry on top of the vehicle. And one of the things we quickly discovered in those Situations in the middle of the day, in the middle of the sand and getting the getting bogged down a bit and being too slow With no traction, was it was far too slower process and less efficient To chuck down these max tracks and make very slow progress when we could easily just unwind the winch cable, find the tree on the riverbank on the other side, and most of these riverbanks were dry, I'm talking about completely dead dry.
Speaker 1:If you've got a long, if you've got a long, if you've got a long, sandy thing to do.
Speaker 2:And it didn't.
Speaker 1:Max tracks is going to take you all day unless you can get it up and moving again. But the trouble that we'd find is that you get it up and moving again, you just drop off the end of the track and you just get disappear again. So you know, recovery for recovery there's all different gear and all different things. But yeah, we learned some lessons in, In fact, in a five day window.
Speaker 2:In a five day window there's a blog on our website at the counter. There's some videos.
Speaker 1:We wish every day. So the diff locks would have been a bit handy for that.
Speaker 2:That's probably one of the odds of being able to do. I know the day that I suggested to you well inquired. What did you think about adding some diff locks to this vehicle? Was that I was aware that we were relying quite heavily on there actually being a tree to winch to, and I was getting concerned that if we got out into the middle of.
Speaker 1:Bird dropped something on me.
Speaker 2:Oh, we just had a nature intervention here, it's all right.
Speaker 1:It was only a seed, it wasn't a bird's. A drop there came down out of the tree into David's lap.
Speaker 2:Ok, yeah, so what I was saying was I was a little bit concerned. We were reliant on there actually being a decent tree to winch off, and my recognition was it was possible that if there was no tree then we were going to be in a much harder situation. So the idea about considering having extra diff locks is to mitigate that issue, because we're always alone, we're always travelling solo. So, look, a lot of people don't do this, of course, because solo isn't for everybody.
Speaker 1:Oh, the other thing I was just going to say, the other thing that I learned one of the things that we had in the 80 was that extra long range fuel tank and that was great, you know. And then we bought the 200 and the first trip I spent most of the trip stressing that we were not going to have enough fuel, that we just couldn't.
Speaker 2:We went to do dracals, we just didn't have the range so it had 100 and what is it 140?
Speaker 1:137 litres 137 litres is a rated standard tanks, and it was within the first five minutes, the first few days out on this trip. I'm going oh my God, the fuel's disappearing. I don't have the fuel range. I don't have the fuel range, and so I was always. It then became a whole stress about where are we going to stop to get the fuel. It played on my mind enough that I said to Michelle when we get back from this, I've got to do the fuel tank, and so we did that as well. Now we've done that, and so that's perfect.
Speaker 1:There's a whole story about that. There's a whole story about fitting that and breaking down on the Tonka. Enough if we just fitted it on our next trip. But you know well, in fact we could talk about it, but the car's been. We then had to go through the setup process of the car and the camper, and so things were a little bit different, Because one we had a camper that we were towing so it could hold a lot of fridge space, food space, all the kitchen equipment, bedding space, all the kitchen.
Speaker 2:We never used it.
Speaker 1:All the other stuff that we used to carry in the car. We could then put into the camper. But of course, as technology changes now we've got to fit drones and Starlink dishes and all these other things into the car. So now we filled the car again anyway, even though we don't have kids in it. We've got no kids and we still got no space, but we don't have to utilize the roof racks, the roofs as much as we used to, but this setup feels like such luxury.
Speaker 2:There's no denying that. I mean there's some big things that change from the previous setup with this 200 series is that the kitchen is and all the cooking, as you said, is all in the camper. But this camper I don't know how many people know the ultimate is under 1,000 teard weight, so under 1,000 kilos, it's 940 kilos 990 or something is the rating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this means it's still very super lightweight, even though we're talking about getting bogged occasionally Because you are loading it up still and you've got maybe some firewood on top, you're dragging that around and okay. So it's just the logistics. But, yeah, for us the comforts of having the bed almost fully made up, stand up fridge in the kitchen, so a second fridge because we carry a fridge in the back of the four wheel drive. So how we've done this is we've got the car fully set up that if we want to disconnect and go a four wheel driving, we can, or camping because we've got cooking fridges dual battery.
Speaker 1:we've got lithium batteries in it, we've got a whole setup in the car as well as a whole setup in the camper, so that we can basically be independent. But it also gives us redundancy and, being the computer people in the work, we rely on power.
Speaker 2:so having a full electrical system, lithium battery based system, in the car, Well, we've got two inverters one in the car and one in the big ones.
Speaker 1:We've basically got a lot of duplication in there so that we've got relative security of everything working and then so the ultimate was great. We've done a lot of touring around.
Speaker 2:We put our bikes, on the roof rack of the ultimate.
Speaker 1:We put the bikes on the roof of the ultimate, which was something that we designed to do. The only problem was that ultimate was a manual lift, so you had to basically lift up the lid manually. It has a big 1700 Newton meter gas strut on it which is massively strong for people that understand about these gas struts. But still the lid was reasonable. You had to flip it over and bring it back down and over a period of time this was starting to play havoc with my back issues and stuff.
Speaker 1:So some people have been asking we've just bought another ultimate. So we've just bought a new ultimate now, which we've only just got in the last week or two, and why change what we've already had? We've already got an ultimate and, realistically, the space and the size and almost everything else is almost exactly the same, except obviously it's all new. But one of the most relevant things for me with my back and other issues is this electric lift. So now it's all electric lift and we can actually lift it with the bikes still on it. We've had the 150 kilo lid upgrade done so that we can lift up to 150 kilos on the lid, and so we've just mounted the bikes on there and we'll put some how much of those two mountain bikes weigh.
Speaker 1:Do you reckon oh, I don't know by the time we put these out back tire tubes in there that weigh about five kilos each because they're thornproof? No, the two bikes would be around about 30 kilos by the time you add the two bikes together, because mine's carbon fiber, so it's fairly light, but the mass is about 30 kilos. But the advantage of not having to take it off to lift it, it's all just realistically, the new camper, other than a bit of luxury, oh, come on. And oh yeah, okay, it's got a hot and cold running water.
Speaker 1:It's got internal heating. You can heat the inside of it. It's got 200 litres of water tanks.
Speaker 2:It's got grey water tanks You're 56, I'm 55. We're not 20 year olds. Anymore, we're happy to wash in a bowl of seawater.
Speaker 1:So now, why do we change that? Why have we got the new thing? Well, because it's got all those mod cons and it's more fancy and it's new. But our plan is to spend much more time in it. So now, with the kids finished school and the position of our business, we want to do more trips. We want to be out there researching and doing the work. We've spent a bit of time in the last trips to make sure that we can work remotely. We've got the Starlink, we've got all bits of pieces happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Starlink's a game changer because of the customer service of being able to keep up to date regularly with people, because on the last trip, whilst I was keeping up to date and working, there would be a delay of at least one week. Sometimes it was two to three weeks, and then we had issues with the phone. You know, we had dual SIM phones, we had Optus, we had Telstra, but then we chose the I don't know the Penitel, the budget phone thing, and I had problems where I just couldn't get the voicemail for a while. So whilst I had phone service, it was the wrong carrier, I couldn't get the message, you know, and that put a lot of stress on us and by getting the Starlink that's taken away the stress of being able to be daily responsive in the business and that's what we can do now.
Speaker 1:But of course it uses more space in the car, because the antenna's quite big and then you've got to take poles to mount it on and all the other bits and pieces.
Speaker 1:So you know, there's always some there's always pluses and there's always minuses, but you know so the progression to the new ultimate is for that. We actually haven't taken it for a trip yet. It's all about to happen. So hopefully we'll get out there and be able to actually use these great toys that we've been spending all our time, years and money putting together, and you know from a vehicle's point of view. That's about where we're up to today.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we just had the cars wrapped and I've just done a load of servicing on the cars, the graphic wraps, and we've just done a lot of servicing on the cars.
Speaker 1:And we didn't even talk about the other projects, like building the sun's bus, camper conversion and all these other things that we've been working on over the last few years. So you know, whilst these bits have been going on, we've always I've always, I've always like tinkered and tunkered with the cars. I've always tinkered and tunkered building camper conversions. I've done three or four camper conversions now with buses and cars and campers and working on our own car and looking at the best options for what we've taken Whilst our car you know it looks really pretty now because it's got a wrap on it, but because it kind of looks all shiny and all new and everything, but it's really scratched underneath it because we use it. You know Our usage of these cars and stuff is practical. Everything we put into the car we hope is practical. And it's only practical for us to be able to go and do this longer term touring on our own or with people, if we happen to meet some people which we haven't traveled with many people for a long, for a long, long time.
Speaker 2:But We'll find some new friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll find some new friends, but, you know, whilst we've got all this going and making all these plans and setting everything up, it's important I believe it's important to keep working on these things and have a very good picture in your head of how everything sits together and how it all works. So you know, we're here now, ready to go for our trips and travels, and that's the story of, realistically, how we got here. We could talk, as I said, we could have talked about other bits with all the other conversions and things that we've conquered with, but I think we might leave the story for the Leon's bus.
Speaker 1:We might leave the bus for another story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got a little bit on the YouTube channel of building Benji. That's been a massive project for the last 12 months and really interesting one.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I've learned more mechanic stuff. I've learned stuff that I didn't know before. So we've got more into welding and got more into lots of other stuff. So yeah all life experiences, but that's what it is.
Speaker 2:you can never know enough with this recreation. It's like every vehicle is there for a different stage of your life. You know, we've gone traveling without kids pre-kids Then we've had the young kids growing up all through teenage life. Now the kids are off our hands, and so that's why we've I mean, a lot of people go through a lot more vehicles than we do. We have just found vehicles, though, that have really worked for us, and because you've worked on them, you've been comfortable to modify them and serve them, oh yeah, but we've also spent significant time and investment and resources into making it what it is.
Speaker 2:I know you don't. We just want to flick it off.
Speaker 1:Because to go from.
Speaker 2:The attachment to that 80 pound setup.
Speaker 1:So you go and buy a 300. But I don't think I would. But let's say you went and bought a 300 today. It's going to take you a long time to get your fuel tanks, your suspension changes your roof racks, your roof bars, your drawer systems, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:That's what the appeal was when Dad's car was off.
Speaker 1:Because it had all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah because it solved our dilemma. This was a big dilemma that you really didn't want to strip out what we had and then have to go through that process. It's exhausting shopping around and finding all the right bits because they're different sizes. It's like, oh you know, this rack's a different size, this bar's a different size.
Speaker 1:It's all right if you've got an unlimited budget and you just say buy this car and go there and have everything done, but I'm afraid we don't. Well, the other problem is you go there and have all this done and then you take the thing out in the field and something really basic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Doesn't work properly and you look at it with your and that's the problem with the computerized car as well. It's like if something goes wrong you're in a lot of trouble. But anyway, that's where, that's our cars and our progressors and our vehicles and the setups and why we've done what we've done, and I hope you find that really interesting. And again, make sure you subscribe and we'll catch up with you next time.
Speaker 2:Just pop them on the YouTube channel, maybe ask us questions at the bottom of that. And if you've got any other suggestions for other topics you'd like us to talk about in these podcasts, please contact us and let us know. More than happy, there's tons and tons of opportunity for us to keep chatting away and we promise there'll be lots more episodes coming and, yeah, hope you subscribe and stick with us. We're really enjoying it so far. Thank you so far.