Off Grid Down Under by MDC

EP 38 - The Trip That Changed Everything

• MDC Campers and Caravans • Episode 38

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For Mandy and Rolly, the open road wasn't just a holiday, it was a turning point. In this episode of Off Grid Down Under, the couple behind Memories Not Money share the story behind their lap of Australia, how time outdoors helped Rolly through a difficult mental health journey, and what they've learned about family, simplicity, and just getting out there. 

One of our most honest and heartfelt conversations yet.

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Escape with Confidence — MDC Campers & Caravans

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Escape with Confidence

SPEAKER_03

If we can do this, we can take it round Australia. We did it in a cyclone on my 40th birthday. Had to be there. We said I want my 40th on Fraser, and all my mates abandoned me because the weather was terrible and COVID. COVID lockdown in Brisbane, so they couldn't get out. And then yeah, it was just like, okay, we're still gonna go, Mandy and the three boys and myself. We had the Forbes 13 then, drug it up the beach, set up camp, and we had a real fat time. Become a father and really get to know them and them get to know me as well, and that sort of really helped my mental health because I was like, okay, now I am doing my job as a father.

SPEAKER_04

You can cook pretty much anything in a camp oven if you think about it. I do pavlova. Do you? Yeah. Wow, do the marine. Pavlova in the camp oven. Temperature control would be exciting for that.

SPEAKER_00

Go make those memories, the money will come back always, and just go with what you have. Don't think you have to have the big setup this.

SPEAKER_04

I'm Sam, I'm the host, and I'm joined here with Vaughan Heinley, Managing Director of the Business. Thank you, Sam, thanks for having me back. Thanks for joining us. It's sunny outside, beautiful day. Don't really want to be locked up, we're gonna be out camping, and what better to talk camping with than um some veterans of camping, veterans of MDC. Our guest today, Mandy and Rowley. How are you on? Thanks for being here. You guys are from the MDC and Oz R V owners group, but also your own channel, Memories Not Money.

SPEAKER_05

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

Yep, that's us. Um started in 2015, not long after we bought our first MDC. Cool. So tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_04

How did you guys first get into camping?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think we both we book camped a lot as kids, didn't we? Like both of us.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I spent a lot of time camping on Fraser Island. Yeah. And Mandy grew up in Western Queensland. Um she camped a lot as part of their working lifestyle, like on stations and that, driving cattle on the side of the road. Her mum was a driver's cook. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It was, yeah, just through for our property. So my dad, my uncle, and I used to go driving and um yeah, just do it old school, like camp on the side of the road and yeah, with your horses tied to a tree.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00

Driving your cattle along, lots of fun. Nice.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, you did a lot of camping naturally and and whereabouts in Queensland are you from, sort of originally?

SPEAKER_03

Uh I'm originally from a little town called Gundai, which is not far up the highway from here, um, just inland from Tyro.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Um in the Wide Bay. And um that's where I spent all my children.

SPEAKER_04

So you ended up in Fraser quite a bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it was nice and close, and we went there every chance we had. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I grew up on a property uh just near St. George in Queensland, so yeah, 2,000 acres. Um we had no schools near us, so I went to boarding school and stuff like that. So a bit of a different upbringing to most people.

SPEAKER_04

I I was out there on the weekend myself just for the weekend away, so I drove through St. George and out to Connamullah and Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00

Not a bad part of the world.

SPEAKER_04

It's all right.

SPEAKER_01

Fraser Island is amazing. Like um, we have a family trip there every Easter. Oh, it's Ellie's favourite spot. Yeah, we go up to like Orchid Beach.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I spent a lot of time over there as a kid. Um, it's still my favourite place in the world. Like out of every place I've been to, I just say to everyone, if you haven't been to Fraser Island, you've got to go there. Even on its worst day, it's still good. And we did it, we did it in a cyclone on my 40th birthday, had to be there. We said I want my 40th on Fraser, and all my mates abandoned me because the weather was terrible and COVID. COVID lockdown in Brisbane, so they couldn't get out. And then yeah, it was just like, okay, we're still gonna go, Mandy and the three boys and myself. We had the Forbes 13 then, drug it up the beach, set up camp, and we had a real fat time. Is that Cyclone Alfred? It was what year was that? It was it was 2020. It was in January.

SPEAKER_04

Right, yeah. Interesting. That was might have been the one that washed away Inskip perhaps a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well they got back okay. Yeah, Inskip's still there, some of it. Some of it came back, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Well look, we're gonna get into some of your travels in a little bit, in a bit more detail, and yeah, just to hear about where you guys have gone. But what does it mean for you guys? Everyone has a bit of a has a different reason they like to go camping. What does it mean for both of you?

SPEAKER_03

Um, I think it's just a lot of the time just to reset. Um, for me anyway, we go we go quite regularly now, even though sometimes you get a bit busy, we always make time to have a quick weekend or away, and you know, you can just sit down, you can do as much as you like, we can do as little as you like. We recently did a trip at Easter and we had all these plans to go fishing and crabbing, and the first day we just thought, let's just sit here, light the fire, and chill for a couple of days, and you know, and we did that, and then the last couple of days we decided okay, we'll go do some crabbing, but it's just a good chance to reset and just get your mind back to back to basics, really, like you know, to say say to yourself you don't need all this other stuff in your life, and anything that is going on, it's not that bad.

SPEAKER_00

So just a bit of quiet and clarity.

SPEAKER_04

The chance to think yeah, step away from the rat race of the day-to-day, and you guys have got kids as well, so that's part of part of the day-to-day that you do. So, how does that translate into I guess making it part of your life? So you do long trips, things like that, but you also do those little weekends away. That must do quite a bit for your mental health, things like that. I mean, that's that's why I enjoy camping. I think probably Vaughan running a business, it'd be nice to have that time out as well from time to time. But what's that kind of do for your mental health on a on an ongoing basis? Or yeah, you've told a story recently on the Kakadoo trip, I believe it was, that yeah, you had a bit of a journey.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I had a bit of a uh mental health journey um started in 2012. I lost a good friend of ours, the family friend, through self-harm, and that sort of put me in a bit of a downspiral um in my own mental health issues and took a bit of coming back from, but we we sort of decided that's when we decided we were gonna sell up and do our lap around Australia because we worked out that you know our health and our our family was more important than anything else that we had going on, and we didn't need to, you know, make the million dollars and have the big house and the big car or whatever at the time. We just needed to make sure that we were right going forward and giving our kids the um the right messages.

SPEAKER_00

And that took a lot of pressure off just making that decision. Yeah, yeah, it just took just a whole lot of pressure off, so yeah, it was nice just to be able to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_04

Just enjoy the moment, live in the moment, live in wherever you are, and just let your mind kind of relax.

SPEAKER_01

So your first MDC was a off-road deluxe, is that right? How did you fall into that?

SPEAKER_03

Well, my cousin first bought and I think it was the model before the MO uh MDC 05 tent model. And we were at my grandparents one Christmas and they had it there. They were my uncle picked it up for them and they were towing it back to Mackay. And we had a good look over it, and we thought, Jinx, these look alright. We were camping in swags in the back of Utes at the times with the kids, had gazebos over top of them and different bits and pieces, and we'd had a few bad weather trips and the boys a little bit over it. Um, and we were looking at a trailer or trailer tent, and we thought, well, that was a good place to start. We liked what they looked like and went down to the showroom in Brizzy on a trip, had a good look there. Then we went to the show in Brizzy. Um, we had it in our mind we're going there to buy this trail, this is what we want. Um, on the way in, another guy held us up, he had a different brand, and we started looking at that and we thought, oh, that's alright. So we went back to MDC and we're like crawling under it, having a look at everything. Um, then went back to the other guys and we're like, no, this one doesn't look like it's gonna hold up as well, um, which was proof because the company wasn't around 18 months later, so obviously, you know, um, and MDC is. So we decided we bought that van, uh the trailer then and there at the show.

SPEAKER_04

So that was the off-road deluxe, and that's the model that you took around Australia first.

SPEAKER_03

We um we had it for two years before we did our lap, or three years before we did the lap. Um and we we'd spoken about it for ages. Well, we want to do this lap, we want to do this lap, and we just weren't putting ourselves in a position to do it. Um and then this this is the time I was going through a lot of mental health struggles, and we we did a trip up through the um went to Cairns and then across the Savannah Way and then come back down through Winton. And one night we're camped on the uh creek at Winton and it poured rain. I woke up about three o'clock and I said to Manny, we've got to get out of here, or else we're not we're not getting here.

SPEAKER_00

If you're not familiar with the mud on the river banks at Winton.

SPEAKER_03

So the black soil, the red soil, yeah. Lucky I anticipated a bit of rain that night, and we put a tarp up over the tent so we could pack it up quickly while it was wet. So instead of the canvas being wet, because we had like three or four days to get home after that. So we packed the the trailer up under the the tarp. I put all carried all the boys into the car. I said, if you shut up, sit down and don't make a noise, I'll shout you're his breakfast at the servo in Winton. So they did, they sat there, didn't say a word. This this is what I call like one of them defining moments in your life. We've got a photo of us packing this trailer up in the pouring rain. We've got raincoats on, headlamps on, and we got a fight photo of us, and we'd just both smiling, like these big grins on our faces. Yeah. And people say what's the most defining moment in your life, and that's it. That's when we we sat at that survey, the boys were eating their brecky, and we said, Hey, if we can do this, we can take it around Australia. So we had a 14-hour trip from their home. By the time we got home, we had a plan. We had a plan. We rented our house, we actually had a contract for sale on the house with the people that were renting it as well. We sold off half the gear that we didn't need and then moved in with Mandy's mum and dad on their property to save even more money, and six months later we left. Amazing. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

What year was that, mate?

SPEAKER_03

2017. Well, 2016 was the year at Winton that we decided.

SPEAKER_00

And we went in 2017.

SPEAKER_03

We left in on Australia Day 2017.

SPEAKER_01

So for everyone out there, that's a long time ago. The MDC 05 was a soft floor side fold. It was 12 foot off the side of the actual trailer. And you were running around with three boys in U2? Yep. Around the whole country. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The three boys were in their swags side by side in the tent part, and obviously we had our nice comfort inner spring mattress, you know, just glamping it.

SPEAKER_03

No, the boys were the boys were right beside us. Like from when we we got down from our bed, it was like a foot and a half. Yeah. And you had to be careful if you had to get up in the middle of the night, you didn't stand on them.

SPEAKER_00

Because Jackson slept like a you know thrashing crocodile, he'd end up at the other end of the tent by the end of the night.

SPEAKER_03

And yeah, I made a a boat rack for it myself, which was supposed to put a boat on, but we ended up loading it up with other gear because we couldn't fit it in because we had our old high lucks then. And um yeah, we just made it work. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

So we didn't really have a plan, we just won day by day pretty much.

SPEAKER_04

Just went as you went. So coming back to I guess your mental health journey and and dealing with that, and I guess finding camping as sort of that nice, relaxing release. Was there a point, was it in your sort of around Australia trip that you started to realise that this was helping and you had that sort of realisation that this has really taken the load off and it's been great for us as a family or for yourself personally?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there was there was definitely moments, um, and Mandy could probably pick like she could see a change in me as a person because I was always very driven to I had to be this and be that kind of person, you know. You're a man, you've got to get married, have kids, buy a house, you know, all them sort of things, and I just I was sort of I was a father, but I was never home to be a father as such. So I got that time to spend with the boys and actually become a father and really get to know them and them get to know me as well, and that sort of really helped my mental health because I was like, okay, now I am doing my job as a father. I was I wasn't just you know being a parent as such, but um the one moment that really makes me proud, we were just north of Broom, a camp called Kwandong Point, and it was Mandy's birthday, and I wanted to get the perfect campsite up on top of this sand dune to look over the the water. Um so we found this spot, but there was a low-laying branch on one of the trees, so I couldn't get a re real good run-up because we would have hit it, so I had to go really slow under it and then try and take off, which we got bogged in some of the softer sand.

SPEAKER_00

We got all kinds of bogged.

SPEAKER_03

So we were there for a couple of hours trying to get out. Um, we end up unhooking the trailer and got the car out. Then I put max tracks under the A-frame of the trailer and skull dragged it up with the winch up the top of the sand dune. But the whole time I'm getting back in the car after hooking up the winch and everything at different times, and every time I get back in the car, I'm yelling and swearing at myself, Rolly, you know, you're an idiot, what are you doing? Like, you should have known better. The kids are going to be upset, Mandy's gonna be upset because I've wrecked her birthday, and I'm getting out, and the boys are just like, okay, start shovelling, I'm doing this. And and I sort of stood back and I looked at what they were doing, and not one of them was complaining. You know, we all got up there, we got the tent set up.

SPEAKER_00

It was all problem solving together, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I thought these boys just got in there, didn't whinge, didn't, you know, company. It could have been a lot worse.

SPEAKER_00

They could have been like, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I don't want to do this, this is horrible.

SPEAKER_03

But they were just and then at that point I realised I'm actually teaching these boys some really good lessons for life. So it sort of made sure, like it run home that what we were doing was the right thing to do. So yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_04

It's nice to have that reflection and recognise that and see it and see it in the moment and be able to really appreciate it. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01

And I guess like um, you know, the romance plans don't always work, do they? No. No. You're like thinking I'm gonna park on this awesome spot on top of the sand dune, it's gonna be like a romantic sunset.

SPEAKER_04

But by the time you get up there, you've missed the sunset, the wind's blowing, the kids are blowing up.

SPEAKER_03

It was dark. But we did a do-over the next day, we said, right now we'll do a do-over, and we had the best time hermit crab races. Because I'm not a real sweet tooth, so we had these chocolates and little fun-sized chocolates, and I had one and I had it in the fridge, it must have been there for like three months, and the boys were like, When can I eat it? When can I eat it? I said, No, don't touch it, it's mine. So that was the prize for your hermit crab race. So this is crab one. So they got the chocolate, so and yeah, I cooked up a big feed of um loaded chicken snitchels um for dinner, and yeah, we had a really good time that night, and it all worked out in the end.

SPEAKER_00

We had a great day.

SPEAKER_04

That's awesome. So what advice would you give to somebody who might be facing uh mental health challenges or you know, in the in their dark places at the moment, what advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely just reach out.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, reach out. That was the the biggest step for me. I didn't know where to go, where to turn. Um I was keeping it all inside. Like Mandy didn't have a clue for the first probably 18 months. Um she could obviously see a difference in me, but she didn't know they're going to be able to do it. Well you were running a business too. What I was doing. Um and yeah, once I made that first initial step, it all became a lot easier. Um and I sort of knew what directions to go then. It was like I always say to people, um I know after going through what I went through what to tell people, uh, but I don't know if I could actually do the job of telling them so I know where to go first. So I always point that's why I do a lot of work with the uh Black Dog Institute because that's where I went to. So I always point people to them because they're trained, they know what to say, they get you on the right path. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's great. We're gonna talk about some of the the cookups and the charitable stuff in in a little while, so we'll get to that. How did you guys first come or you talked about how you came across MDC? You went to the show and you were looking at a particular uh camper at the time. Was it just by chance that you came across MDC at the show or had you heard much about them since?

SPEAKER_03

We'd planned it um because like when my cousin got theirs and we we that was the first time we actually heard of MDC, and then we did the research and went through all the different brands and what was out there at the time. And for us, bang for buck at the time, that was by far the best option to go with. Um I think it was like five thousand six hundred dollars at the show we paid for.

SPEAKER_04

So that was the off-road deluxe, that would have been one of the early, the very early ones for you, was it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we were selling thousands of those a year, they were super popular. Um when we brought that in, the next uh lowest price off-road camper was around about 12,000. So we were like seven grand less than that. Yeah, wow. And they were flying out the door.

SPEAKER_04

And then you went to the 05, is that right?

SPEAKER_00

Oh no, we went to the city.

SPEAKER_04

No, we went to the Forbes 13 campaigns. Oh, you went to the Forbes 13, okay.

SPEAKER_03

A big jump. Yeah, right. And and our original camper is still going in Mackay. We sold it to Mandy's uncle, who's taken it out to Birdsville Bash, uh but before he unsold it to somebody else and last year he sold it on. Still getting around. Nice.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Well, you guys are following the true evolution of a camper, right? Where they come out and they start in a tent, then they upgrade to a swag, and then they upgrade to a camper trailer, and then they go to a hybrid, and then they end up in a full hard top caravan. So watch this space.

SPEAKER_03

Well, originally when we went to the big red bash in 2019, we were looking at upgrading, and it was the Robson XT or a Jackson forward fold that we were sort of looking at, and then all everyone else had the hybrids and stuff out there then, and MDC had their big range on display, and we came back and we thought we we're gonna throw 25 grand into a forward fold or a fold out camper trailer, we may as well throw a bit more at it and go the whole hog to the hybrid.

SPEAKER_04

By that stage, you know how much you're using it, you know what the repayment's gonna be kind of on your investment, right? You know the payoff you're gonna get. And then you move from the Forbes into the XL 15E, the Mark III.

SPEAKER_03

Yep.

SPEAKER_04

So that was a couple of years ago, couldn't mean too long ago. Two years ago, it was about last year.

SPEAKER_03

They're only fresh. Yeah, we're right. Got our um Facebook anniversary come up.

SPEAKER_04

What did that look like coming out of the Forbes, which is more of an entry-level hybrid, and to go into the the Grand Royale of the Mark III?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, just uh a little bit more space and um storage, and I didn't have to lift the roof up anymore. I just had to press a button, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was it was a big difference, especially the power system, and and we don't camp very power hungry, but it was good to have that option because we do we live in North Queensland, the weather can be quite ordinary, and and we still go out in the wet season and camp on the beaches and stuff, and often we'll be um just sitting inside around that uh club lounge, have the music cranking, and we can cook on the induction cooktop inside if we need to, run the air con to cool it down if we need to. And the power was was a big draw card for us.

SPEAKER_04

I'm a testament to that. I'm I'm living in my caravan at the moment, my XT17, the Mark III, and I've not had it plugged into mains once, and I'm up to week five now or something like that. So it's been great, temporary solution, but hey, it's working really well.

SPEAKER_01

And when you talk about big power, by the time this comes out in the real world, we're into our Mark IVs, and we've taken it next level again, so it's real exciting. I can't really talk to that right now. That's still hush hush. We'll just put it on a podcast. MDC, what we're known for is like take it to the top.

SPEAKER_04

So that's right. Look, new models-wise, there's always something happening in MDC, that's for sure. So you guys are following that journey, which is great. Vaughan, from your perspective, what does it mean to you to see guys like Mandy and Roley who've come through the full evolution of you know the MDC journey? That must feel pretty unique to you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and you know, we go to a lot of these um MDC and Oz R owners events, um, you know, the big red bash, the Mundy Mundy. We're off to a um Mother's Day event in a couple of days, and we're travelling um with Roley and Mandy.

SPEAKER_04

But we've got the Masters running as well. Yeah, Masters running now. We've got them running all this year. We kicked off with New South Wales and Queensland and uh Victoria last year. So this year now it's more states, South Australia and WA.

SPEAKER_01

So that's gonna be real exciting.

SPEAKER_04

Big events for to get amongst the community.

SPEAKER_01

It's really good to see people come up through the range. Like and you know, these guys they live the camping lifestyle, that's what they do. Um 24-7 almost, right? And for these guys to stay with the brand is like really cool.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think also that owner feedback, we've talked about that with Banksy when he's been on in the past, you know, things that he's learned through his use of the product comes back to RD and gets fed back to James's team, and they can then go, cool. If anybody knows, it's the guys that are traveling around Australia in the going to all these events and actually using it. So having that pathway back into the business to feed that product insight back is invaluable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and what we find is um the people that give the most um information on the MDC and Oz of Owners group are the most knowledgeable. And um, Mandy and Roly are certainly within that fold and offer a lot of value to other customers. And so there's a group of people there that we take a lot of insight from, and when we get feedback, we take it very seriously. Um and I guess you can probably talk to the opportunity that these guys what are they up to? Why are they here today? Oh what is the real reason?

SPEAKER_04

We're gonna hear about their journey and what they're going on, but I guess before we do, we're gonna leave, we're gonna keep this in the bag, we can't let it all out. You're impatient, boy. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01

It's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_04

Well, I want to know how you guys got involved in the in the MDC NYSA Vionas group. I guess talking about that, because you are big, you're heavily involved with it. You get work do a lot of work with Daniel Eastern and at the events themselves, you guys are very involved.

SPEAKER_03

I pretty much joined not long after we got the soft floor. Mm-hmm. The Facebook group. Yeah, the Facebook group. Um and then we when we did our lap, we you know, we posted bits and pieces here and there. That actually I told that story of the Mandy's birthday when we got bogged and we won a set of max tracks through they used to do competitions and stuff. That would be handy. That would have been handy about two hours ago. But um and then twenty nineteen they did the big red bash and MDC sponsored, and we all signed up to go out there. We were looking forward to it. We'd spoken to Daniel a few times on and off through Facebook, never met the man.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we hadn't met any owners.

SPEAKER_03

We were on our way to the bash. We're at Bark Alden, got a phone call from Daniel. He'd lost his wheel on his car on the way through at Winton. Can you see if you can stop in at Long Reach and get me some parts? Yep, no worries. So we stopped in at Long Reach, Toyota, banged on the doors, got them open. They didn't have parts open. I got wheel studs for him, bits and pieces. I was gonna actually machine the hub for him if the mechanic in uh get on the lane. Yeah, I was gonna have machined it off so he could just run it without his brakes, but the guy wouldn't let us do that, so yeah. Um but then he got onto Steve, who was on his way through from Brisbane and picked up a uh brake rotor from Dolby, like Toyota there, then all that. So we never met the guy, then we met him in Winton, gave him the parts that we had, helped him out, and then yeah, got to the bash and we just met this unreal group of people.

SPEAKER_04

It was I was gonna ask what what how important is that sense of community to you, but I think it's more important to Daniel by the sound.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. So but yeah, everyone got there, we'd met all these people, and we all just become really good friends, and like that thing, like you you gotta help your mates out. Like he didn't know us, we didn't know him. It was just hang on, these guys are coming through here, I'll give them a chance call. You know, you see how many people driving down the highway today, even parked on the side of the road, no one gives a second thought to them.

SPEAKER_00

No, they don't have a little community out there ready to help like we do.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's like it's quite unique, and you see that the volume of people we got on there is I think testament to that. So the volume of people that turn up to the events, you know. I think a couple of years ago we had sort of 52 caravans, but I don't know what the what's the biggest number you've had out of the big red bash?

SPEAKER_03

63 or something like that. Just under 70 at one stage, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

That's huge. So the MDC paddock, as it's known amongst the uh owners group. So Vaughan, is this is that community something you expected when you started the business? I guess you were sort of pre-internet when you started, weren't you? Was it not? Certainly pre-fa almost pre-Facebook, maybe not quite pre-internet.

SPEAKER_01

Geez, looking back, I was probably pre-iPhone when we started. Yeah, it'll be like when the first iPhone came out. 20 years 2008. I think we we started in 2005.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, right. So it would have been would have been certainly pre-Factor, like no doubt.

SPEAKER_01

Oh look, I I really um didn't have any idea, and I think it was uh big red bash, that first event that we sponsored when we went out with the team, and we took um a lot of MDC um people that worked within the business to that event, you know, Steve Zammer and uh a few salespeople. Link and those guys I think went out. Yeah, no, I think that was pre-Link. Yeah, I think we didn't unleash Link until a little bit later. Okay. Unleash is a good word, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's very fitting for Link.

SPEAKER_01

But um no, it just became a thing that we um wanted to attend like year on year. And so I guess we're sort of piggybacking that and now it's uh it's the owners group that sort of run it, and you know, we're always invited and we come along.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think that's important to call out. It is the owner's group page, it's not an MDC run page. We're certainly on there and involved with it, but it's run by you guys and Daniel, it's not it's independent to MDC, but it's yeah, we're certainly on there offering advice and feedback and things like that.

SPEAKER_03

So Daniel does put a lot of time, like he's you know, constantly on there monitoring everything that's going on. He he's really like he wants it to be the best it can be. Like he generally feels that like he needs to keep this page like at the best that everyone can get good advice, they're not getting the wrong advice. So if the wrong advice is there, he's always pulling it up or someone's pulling it up, he does a really good job with it.

SPEAKER_04

Bringing some bringing the the the subject matter expert in to address it if it's a Steve Zambiter or if it's uh whoever. So speaking of the big red bash, tell me about your cook-ups.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, um it's sort of something that just happened. Like I always loved me camp cooking. Uh I was I was actually wanted to be a chef in in my younger years, but that didn't happen. Um and then just always done different things, camp oven cooking. When we went around Australia, tried to prove to myself that anything you cook at home, you can cook in the camp oven, which I pretty much can do. Um, and then we're at the bash one year, it was the COVID year. We first year we had the Forbes out there, and a heap of people couldn't get out there, they'd stopped them from coming into Queensland or for whatever reason. It was a bit of a slower year for the bash, and we're all around the campfire one night. Vaughan was there, Daniel, a couple other people, I think, and Vaughan's like, I've got these um apple pies, frozen apple pies in the freezer. Yes, I've got to do it. I don't know how I'm gonna cook them. I said, Oh, we'll chuck them in the camp oven. He goes, Can you do that? I said, Yeah, no worries. So we chucked them in the camp oven and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. So good. Bang on. And then the following year we were following Daniel Easton out and a couple of other owners were at Winton, and Daniel was on the phone to Vaughan um talking about different things with the event, if there's anything we needed. And then Vaughn just gave a bit of a cheeky mark. Oh, what's Rolly um cooking for me this year? And I said, Well, I've got a couple of pork butts there. I was going to do like for just our small group of people. But if you can pick up a bit of extra pork on your way and some bread rolls, we'll do a big cook-up when we're out there. So that was the first year we I did pool pork rolls. I think we sold 50, or we just within our sold 50 for a donation to the raw flying doctors within the group. I think we raised 1500 bucks with that. Amazing. Then we started shaving heads and all kinds of silly things the next day, raise more money. And then the year after Daniel and I sort of got together and talked about okay, we want to let's do this proper, um, because we don't want to keep shaving our heads, that's just a silly idea. Yeah, it just grows back. We'd plan the big cookup for make sure it was on the second night that everyone gets in there, so you've got the first night to settle in, everyone has a meet and greet, and then the second night we always do the cookup, yeah, and then that's pre-concert night, so you can get everyone there. And it also brings people together.

SPEAKER_04

You and Daniel do that. It's not people bringing their own yeah, pot butt type thing, it's you guys putting it on for everybody.

SPEAKER_03

So I sort of pretty much work out what I want to cook and tell Daniel and run it by him, but he pretty much lets me whatever I yeah I want to do.

SPEAKER_04

And it's all it's all in camp ovens on a big huge fire, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00

And we have to take everything out there. It's not like you can stop at a shop in Birdsville.

SPEAKER_04

How many camp ovens do you have on the go?

SPEAKER_03

Fifteen? Um the last I this year I didn't do or last year at Monday, I I'd sort of transitioned to a lot of live fire cooking now. So I don't need as many camp ovens.

SPEAKER_00

But how many do you own?

SPEAKER_03

The year I did the stew. We won't go there. Is it in is it in three figures? No, I culled a few. Um the year I did the stew, I think we had 16 on the fire. Amazing. Um, 16, 18-inch camp ovens. Uh, and I think we did 150 people. Amazing. 140 people for the meal. Last year I took my big Aussie Campfire Kitchens fire pit, it's 1.2 metres diameter. Yeah. I hung 16 legs of lamb off it.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

We had 12 whole pumpkins. And I'm a bit bummed that the bash isn't on this year because we had a really good um thing happening, but I've been lucky enough to um to I'm gonna do the cooking at the Queensland Master. Yeah, fantastic. Um so we might see if I can do the same menu that we're planting at the bash there. Yes, please. That would be fantastic. So, but yeah, and basically, like Daniel and I, there's a few of us in the group that sort of get together with the cookup. There's a heap of that everyone, as soon as it happens, what can I do? How can I help you? Want me to chop something up? Like it's unreal. Everyone just wants to get in and help, and I sort of oversee, like, I get the glory, everyone says, you know, Riley done the cooking, but there's a group of people that you know make it work, it's not just me. And one year when it rained and I got out of bed and I went back in to Mandy, and I said, I don't know how this is going to work, all the wood's wet, and we had real bad timber that year, and someone came over. Oh, I've got some gidgey left that I had it picked up at Winton, and I've got a bit of iron bark, and then I said, Well, I've got a bit of iron bark on the roof as well. So we mixed all that in with the wood and we made it happen, and it's just like, yeah, yeah, this little community just bands together.

SPEAKER_00

It just we just make it work. It like the weather just throws everything at us, and we have cooked in all sorts of weather, and we've always made it work.

SPEAKER_03

Every year there's people that come back year after year, but there's a like a heap of new people, and I find it's a good way. Okay, we're gonna do this dinner, it's for a good cause, everyone turns up, everyone can mingle, get to know each other, who's brings it together, gets everyone in, brings everyone together, and they realise okay, this is a good, safe place. Yep, got the communal fire, yep. Come whenever you want, that's amazing. Bring your beers, stay for as long as you like, have a chat, you know, and it it's it makes a really good community out there. I have it.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely the centrepiece. Like it's got to the stage where um Mandy and Raleigh actually have to rope off the cooking area to give themselves enough room to do the cooking.

SPEAKER_00

Spinning around with hot camp ovens straight into somebody, it gets a bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and now like we get the Royal Flynn doctors, they come for the dinner, and there's a heap of other vendors that are out there, they come and join in because they know we're raising money. Uh so it's yeah, it's really good.

SPEAKER_00

And we look after the wood guys. Yeah, and we make sure we feed them because you can't cook a good feed. Good timber.

SPEAKER_01

And um you guys now are gonna have some gigs at the Queensland industry shows, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03

We just finished one a couple of weeks ago up in Townsville for their van safe rally. Uh we did a huge cook up there through them. 155 people. Yep. We did two whole lambs on the Asado and um did a few nibbles and stuff, so yeah, it was really good. And yeah, we're we're going to be at the Ipswich show doing some stuff there with them as well. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. I love that campfire cooking stuff personally as well. I've got a I've got three, so three camp ovens myself, so I'm share the pain. But it's uh I like making the those self-sourcing puddings for my girls. Oh yeah, that's cool. So you can cook pretty much anything in a camp oven if you think about it.

SPEAKER_03

I I do pavlovar.

SPEAKER_04

Do you? Yeah. Wow, do the maroon.

SPEAKER_03

Pavlova in the camp oven.

SPEAKER_04

Temperature control would be exciting for that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So it's well that's what so it's all that's all you've got to master. It's not you don't have to be a good cook, you just gotta realize how hot things are.

SPEAKER_04

I'd love to see one of those one day. So of all the places you guys have been, you know list a couple, some big ones like Cakadoo, Savannah Way, the Cape. Well, have you been around Australia? Is there is there a place that really stands out for you guys?

SPEAKER_00

Uh for me it would have been Nelmarung, which is in WA. Um it's sort of north of Cundanar, is that the right Cape? No.

SPEAKER_03

Broome. Sorry, north of Broom. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Near Cape Levik, yeah. We kind of we went in there, um, a few people had told us about it, and we sort of drove in and it didn't have a great first impression. I was kind of like, I think we might probably just stay here a night and move on. But oh, we stayed there for a week. We just had the week to us.

SPEAKER_03

We had to drive back into Broome to get more beer because we'd run out of beer and little food. So it was like two and a half hour run back to Broome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And yeah, it was I well, there's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00

It was just like this little oasis, like the boys were just catching whiting by the bucket fulls like straight off the beach, and then you'd walk over onto the cliffs and we were catching calamari, and there was like dolphins and turtles. It was just insane. And yeah, it's a place I would go back to and spend a couple of months. Yeah, take a boat this day. Definitely.

SPEAKER_03

It was yeah, it was one of our highlights. I'd say, apart from Fraser Island, because that's just going to be at the top of my list, uh, steep point. Yes, it was unreal. We went in there, we took the the camper in there, uh, had three cracks in the street. Because there's quite a big sand dune, isn't there? Yes, and it was hot. You don't hear about that. It was hot and we had three cracks down to 12 psi in the tyres, and our high luxe, Gypsy Queen, we called it, we name everything. We name everything we've been. So, yeah, poor old Gypsy Queen. I just gave her everything she had, and yeah, we got over that sand dune. I'm so glad we did because we just we drove out there, we were just like, if we come all that way and get stuck on the sand dune, then it'd be heartbreaking. Yeah, so no, and we spent a week out there and unreal, absolutely some of the best views you'll see.

SPEAKER_00

It's just a different colour blue, that water, and the sand is so white, and there's just starfish. Like Jackson was just running up and down the beach collecting armfuls of starfish and then throwing them at his brothers, but anyway.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, nice. Um that's amazing. But yeah, there's like the it's hard to narrow down one spot like the Flinders is such a beautiful place. Kakadoo, like I can't wait to get back there. Like there's so much still to see, and places in between, like we've done Cape York twice now.

SPEAKER_00

That place is just it's like you're in another world when you go down there in all on all those walks and amongst all the rocks and everything and the yeah, the waterfalls, and yeah, you're pretty much like scaling cliff faces to get to some of them. It's a bit sketchy.

SPEAKER_04

What's the funniest or most sort of unexpected thing you've come across?

SPEAKER_00

I didn't know whether I was going to tell the story.

SPEAKER_04

I think you have to tell it.

SPEAKER_00

So we're at El Cuestro and we were setting up and there was a mob of backpackers come in. And so, as backpackers do, they just get out of the car and they just start getting undressed. They're not worried about like anybody looking. We have like a 13-year-old boy, and we're like putting the camper up, and Rolley goes, Drew, Drew, if you go around the other side, you'll see your first set of boobies. He trots around the side of the camper and has a look and comes back with his biggest grin on his face. I'm just like shaking my head.

SPEAKER_03

Because yeah, that's like our boys weren't well, Drew was 14, 13, 10, 14 when we did our lap, so he wasn't a young, young kid, he was a teenager.

SPEAKER_00

We didn't come across a lot of families with kids his age, so he probably felt the most lost on that lap. Um whereas Jackson and Lockheed just had a ball they come across some of the kids.

SPEAKER_02

But that's his trip, I reckon.

SPEAKER_00

That was probably the funniest story I can remember, just the look on his face. But I don't know if that'll make it to the podcast, whether it's inappropriate or not.

SPEAKER_04

So how do the kids uh how did the kids go on the big lap? And I guess what did you learn from that with them? Were you homeschooling at the time as well?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I like to think of it more as not non-schooling. Like we I made them do a diary. Like I was really a stickler for that, and I'm so happy I did because I love reading back on it. Um we found that they were just learning on the go.

SPEAKER_03

Life skills. We had to we so many life schools. Yeah, but to do that, Mandy actually had to write the curriculum for each of our each of the boys. So lucky we got a few school teachers in our family. Yeah, I got a lot of help, which was great. But as we moved along, we were like, they don't need to be sitting here doing mass equations and things like we're out in the real world, so Drew was keeping our budget. So every week he did our budget. We knew we had this much to spend it on a week, and he worked that out and whatever we had left over, and if we could afford to go to the pub for dinner tonight or do something a bit extra, get ice creams or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

And it was funny, they started taking notice of fuel prices, didn't they? Like we drive in and Jackson was like seven, and he's like, Oh, geez, dad, it's dear fuel here, isn't it? Like, no, not many kids would notice that or even think about it. But it was a big dollar seven, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

74.98 a litre. The cheapest was a dollar sixteen at Geraldton, the whole lap, and I think the dearest was three dollars twenty.

SPEAKER_00

That would have been on Fraser. Fraser wouldn't have been too far behind. Lorella Springs. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Those are the days. It'd be five bucks twenty, five, six bucks a litre up there there.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, but yeah, and we just picked moments in the like the trip that they could learn from, like doing cooking lessons, so they each did it like that to do their meal prep and what they were going to cook for us.

SPEAKER_00

And we give them a budget, so you've got to feed everybody, and this is your budget you've got to stick to, and let's do a three-course dinner, so really give them something to think about.

SPEAKER_04

Give them a challenge.

SPEAKER_00

And um, of course, like somewhere like Oolaroo, like they're learning, they're not looking at it in a book, like we did a tour with a guide, and they were learning, and then we did like an art class on that, so they used the sand and the dirt, and they had to create their own picture of Oolaroo. So I just tried to incorporate anything I could into that situation to give them a learning opportunity.

SPEAKER_04

I'm starting to see how the the memories not money piece is coming into play, right? You've got some really distinct uh distinct memories and and learnings you've had along the way. Is that I guess how has that changed you guys? How has that changed your perspective on money versus experience?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think it's just really in the name. Like you can always make more money, but you can't make more memories at the end of the day. Like when it's all over, that's all you got.

SPEAKER_03

So can't take it with you, no?

SPEAKER_04

No. I agree with that. Uh look at I'm uh yeah, I have the same approach too. I'd you know, I want to experience as much as I can in life, and that is travel, it's yeah, work, it's all those types of things. So I see where you're coming from. Do you have any another lesson? What do people get wrong on the big lab, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know whether they necessarily get it wrong. I think it's just it depends on your view of it, I guess, like what's important to you, what's not important to you. Um, just go with what you've got and your beliefs.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, everyone's gonna do it differently. There's no set way that okay, you should do it like this. Because we were travelling for a bit with a family and they had like a brand new land cruise and a massive two hundred thousand dollar caravan, but we were doing the same things they were in a five thousand dollar caravan in a 10-year-old um High Lux.

SPEAKER_00

And we were seeing the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Our high lucks had nearly 400,000 K's on the clock when we left to do it. You know, you don't need to have all the gear.

SPEAKER_00

No, just go with what you've got and make it work and yeah, go from there.

SPEAKER_04

You told an interesting story about um the trip up the Gibb. So when you're out there, you had the camper trailer and you know, you're doing some servicing work on that. And I think it's about mechanical sympathy and looking after your gear, especially on a trip like that. Do you want to just we're talking about that before?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we're at um Derby Caravan Park, we stayed there the night before we started the Gibb because the state of origin was on and we wanted to watch it. And then the next morning I was servicing the camper trailer before we hit the Gib because I'm pretty stickler for that. Like every trip before, regardless, if I'd done the wheel bearings like last trip and they'd only done a thousand K's, I'll just do them anyway because I'm uh um hydraulic fitter by trade, so I'm a mechanical you know person. And I was doing the wheel bearings and a guy came up to me putting a bit of um poo on me about the van, uh the camper, and being a bit smart about it, and I was like, Oh mate, I'm just doing my service and about to start the gibb it's supposed to be pretty bad. He was having a bit of a go at you about being an import type thing, or yeah. And then we got to Drysdale station about a week and a half later. He's there, decides to have the hide to come and ask to borrow my tools to fix Ozzy made the trailer, yeah. And I'm like, mmm. I think I lent him the I didn't lend him the ratchet spanners, but I lend him the just me tool roll, so you know he had had a hard time doing the nuts up like that.

SPEAKER_00

I couldn't not help him out, but it's just a little bit of karma coming back to bite him, I think.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, and and sometimes that gets my oh like I did get me back up a bit because people do like put it on you about different things, and and you we that's what we could afford at the time. Like we looked at every option and it was best value for money, like that regardless like where it was made or who made it. We we looked at every option that we had available for for it.

SPEAKER_04

And if you look after it and you take care of it, there's no reason things don't last for longer. What inspired you to start the YouTube storytelling piece and memory's not money and turning that into something?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well we started the Facebook page when we started our lap, and Mandy's got an uncle who's um an acting coach at the end.

SPEAKER_00

He owns uh Australian acting academy in Brisbane.

SPEAKER_03

And he said you just need to get on f on YouTube, and we were like, oh no, no, no. And we didn't do it for a while, and then after we'd finished our lap and we'd settled back into a normality sort of, I'd sort of um it was probably what five years after, I took a bit of a a dive again with my mental health, and we um I went and got help and I was talking to a therapist, and one of the things that they they said that you need to do, you need a physical outlet and a creative outlet. And I used to run, I still run, so that was my physical outlet, but I didn't have a creative, I can't write, I can't draw on that. You were very quick on that. Yeah, so we decide okay, we'll just do these videos, and that can be a bit of a creative thing. So that's what we do, and then we thought if it ever becomes anything, we can use that to, you know, we can send the funds that we can make out of that to charity to to that help me. So that's sort of what we do, and it's that's I just use it as a creative outlet, even though sometimes Mooney sits sees me swearing and throwing things at the computer split.

SPEAKER_00

We're not often great with technology, so and Raleigh does really well. I don't have anything to do with the editing, he does it all, and he's like, maybe you should learn how to edit now, no.

SPEAKER_04

It's a great way to it's a great way to store memories too, right? Oh that's right, it's always gonna be there.

SPEAKER_00

It's gonna be there for the kids and their kids and they can look back on it and see what dad did, don't they? And it is cool, like we do look back on it, and it's like, oh, do you remember that? Because sometimes you do forget and then you look back on it and go, Oh, geez, I even forgot about that. Like that was really funny.

SPEAKER_03

And you do, you get some great comments from people and it sort of makes you feel a little bit good that okay, we've done helping people like Mandy's mum always says she watches it and like I'll I'll never get to see that, but she can see it through our eyes and you know have you documented your Pavlova cook on there? Yeah, I have, I've got a video. I I do quite I sort of alternate.

SPEAKER_00

You've got your roll around the campfire segment.

SPEAKER_03

Don't get to get out and film like our trips as much as like Someone on the road full time could do, so we put in some cooking stuff and just show everyone what you can do in the camp oven. It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_04

We'll put a link in that in the comments below. Nice. Tell us about your next big adventure. Well where are you guys heading after this? You're in Brisbane. We're in Brisbane. You're not from Brisbane.

SPEAKER_03

Come down the Bruce Highway, and you know that um it's getting pretty bad when you've got to air down coming down the Bruce Highway, which is rough. Well you came down pretty loaded too. Yeah, yeah. We had to unpack our everything out of our XL 15 Mark III. And um, I don't know. Well, when how long ago Mandy reached out to Vaughan?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I thought I'd just ask a cheeky question.

SPEAKER_03

And um we're gonna we're hitting the Gibb in we leave on Sunday morning pretty much, make our way up to the territory and across. We're meeting a couple other MDC owners along the way.

SPEAKER_04

And you're doing that in a sparkly new gold-class caravan.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, we are. We're really looking forward to this because we've been planning this trip since Kakadu pretty much, and we thought, okay, we'll go do the gear, we worked out what we're doing, and we did a trip last year down to Monday Monday, and we we went down through the Streslecki and the Flinders and dirt roads. And by the time we got home, I said to Manny, I love this van, but the folding the back out at times when it's dirty and muddy and stuff, I was like, maybe we do look at a full. I've had 20 years of this.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, can I step it up a level?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, maybe we do look at a full-size van, but we like to get into you know remote spots and stuff, and we're like, oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

We weren't sure if we were quite ready.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and then Mandy reached out to Vaughan about their new gold class range, which we had a look at a couple of months ago. We were really excited about them that we looked, went all over them. I think the guys at the the um adventure caravans.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, adventure caravan centre there in Brisbane.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they were looking at us a bit weird. I think it was lucky it was a bit showery that they they weren't coming too close outside, but we were crawling all over these things and they're like, and um so yeah, and lucky we've been given the uh AC17C to give a trial through the gimmicks that's that's our adventure class, that's our off-road range, that's a 17-footer with a big double bed in there.

SPEAKER_00

I'm very excited, but I think Rolly's a little bit scared that I'm not gonna ever want to go back to it. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

It's a little bit different to the old off-road deluxe. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_04

I was gonna have to hand this 15. I was gonna hand this back to Vaughan just for a high level, Vaughan. Where does gold class sit from Market Direct Group and and how does it where does it sit in amongst the MDC family?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so gold class caravans, premium made possible. So the idea of that is exactly like um Rolly and Mandy, right? They've had a people that have a swag of MDCs, and then they're like, okay, we're looking for something in the high end of town, which we had.

SPEAKER_04

We want a bit more, a bit more comfort, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Everything. So, you know, the most expensive um electrical system we can buy, DRS, you know, all the all the bells and whistles. So basically, everything that we can put into a van through local suppliers that are the high end of town, like all the tech. Yeah. Um, and so it makes the product a lot more expensive, but also we'd had a lot of um customers that had moved through our range, and then we didn't have anything in the top end. So the idea is to um, you know, we want to keep our MDC owners within the fold, and that's where the gold-class caravans are come from.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think some to really distinguish those, we look at cyberine touch screens and energy electrical systems and airbag man airbags and all those types of things that are those you know, premium market offerings that yes, come at a cost, but they also make the the travel a lot more enjoyable. Yeah, full touchscreen displays, airbag leveling, things like that. That when you pull up, it's it is just buttons. There's no more folding at the back end than you guys. Yeah, you can pull up and hop in there.

SPEAKER_00

Very exciting.

SPEAKER_04

It's fantastic. And look, I'd yeah, I'm the same. I've come out of a camper trailer into a caravan, I know the feeling. Yeah, you've invested the time. I think it's okay to go to a full hard top.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, we've done the hard yards. Oh, we have to do that. That's right, yeah. And I'm done the hard yards with MDC, so you know, you guys are deserving of the opportunity, and I hope that you guys have a great time. And if there's ever is there any feedback, of course, you'll give it back to us. Yeah, um, we want to see all those uh videos on your channel and um all the picks.

SPEAKER_04

Put the product to the test, right? Yeah, it's it's come out of the the MDC film, the the market direct group stable, right? So it it should have all the same pedigree, and well, it does have all the same pedigree, but it'd be good to kind of yeah, get the direct feedback. Often people buy them and they go off and live their life, they don't always come back and share their stories.

SPEAKER_03

So I think having that contact with you guys will be really and we love sharing that like when we we advertise our Forbes for sale when we were upgrading, and we got five people. Oh, we're looking at buying a van. Can we come have a look at it? We don't want to buy it, but we're looking at buying a new one. And and I think over the last two years we've probably had seven people come to our house. Set the van up for them to have a look at our new showrooms, our new um or older now, but the XL 15 had a couple come have a look at that and set it all up and just set up all your camp oven.

SPEAKER_04

Does does Mandy put the camp ovens out there too? You can have one of those if you instead of a free fire pit. Instead of a free fire pit, you get a free camp oven.

SPEAKER_01

So um Rolly, I know you're very sympathetic with the gear, but just because you got the big airbag man airbag suspension doesn't mean you can do 100 kilometres down the river road, all right? Nah.

SPEAKER_00

No, we don't go Daniel Easton Warp speed.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, nah. I'm I'm like I've got a fair fair um knowledge of mechanical sympathy, so and um I've spoken to Banksy, he's the airbag specialist, and he's given me a few tips and he's gonna help me out the Sabi with the levelling and the ride heights and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_04

Just leave it on manual when you're driving. Yeah. Don't put it on auto, because as soon as you go over a bump, it tries to correct itself.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So this is new to us. These are the little things you'll learn along the way.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, no little nuances. That's why we do a big handover and do a proper handover and don't just go, it's got airbags, off you go. Yeah, so that's the purpose of it.

SPEAKER_00

Good luck.

SPEAKER_04

What are you most excited or nervous about about this trip? It's quite a big one. Are you sort of finishing in sort of broom and then coming back down through WA?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we're going straight across to Broom. Oh, we'll go, we meet um B and Chris, who are Oz RV owners um in Dally Waters Pub next Friday. Then we go across to Lake Argyll. We're doing Lake Argyll Bungle Bungles. Beautiful. Then across to Broome. We got three nights in Broome. Then after that, there's nothing else planned. But then we work our way back across the yib. Yeah, making our way across the yield. So we come back across the yib. Yeah, okay. So we'll go west to east and end up in Kananara before we sort of part ways or work out what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04

So is there anything you're nervous about or excited about?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm excited about just reliving it because we did this with our boys on our lap. Um so it'll be nice just to go back to those places and just you know, just rerun those memories. Like, I remember when Jackson jumped off that rock, or do you remember when Lockie climbed up that tree and couldn't get down and like stuff like that?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and well, we were a little bit nervous the way the fuel prices were going, but like we're we're true to our our motto, memory's not money. We just thought, okay, well, maybe next year's holiday won't be as elaborate because we'll have to tap into that to to pay for whatever the fuel's gonna be this year. We just have to roll with it, and that's what it is. Um, so yeah, but I'm not really nervous about anything, like I've got full confidence in you know, I've had the gear before, you know, for a long time. I've got full confidence of what the ability of it is. Um, you might have a few little niggly things that might happen, but you know, you have that with like I've got a tired land cruiser and I've had problems with it, so you know, it happens. Um but I've yeah, I know it's gonna handle it whatever we throw at it quite easily. Um and then I'm pretty excited. We've we've taken a little bit of a um a splurge for ourselves, a bit of a treat. Last time we wanted to do the horizontal falls, but Drew said it wasn't in the budget, so we didn't do it. But we've um booked a seaplane, fly it out to the horizontal falls and to do the boat ride through it. So that's just a little treat for us. That's cool. So we're looking forward to that um the most, I think. But even just being back out there, I just love it. Like even the trip from after we leave the pig races on Sunday going up through central Queensland, finding a camp, going to the city. Springshore and those places, yeah, beautiful little towns on the way.

SPEAKER_00

Big open skies, lots of stars, um, getting to know this beautiful van. Yep. So yeah, it's gonna be good just to slow down.

SPEAKER_04

Vaughan, I guess coming towards the end, I guess, how does these trips from guys like Mandy and Rowley help showcase what the vans can actually do, and I guess where does that lead back into that product development?

SPEAKER_01

Well, these guys just go everywhere there is to be gone. So there isn't a place they haven't been to. And so what you want to know is when the product's taken out to those remote locations as gonna get the customer there and get them back safely. Um and should there be any problems at all, um Roley's quite capable to actually fix anything. Could probably build a van with his bare hands.

SPEAKER_04

Roley is our nationwide service repair network.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, he he's actually helped out a lot of customers on the road. Oh, I've I've actually seen him.

SPEAKER_03

So um well that's where the Facebook group comes into play again. I normally carry six Anderson plugs, and I've was down to one, and I don't think I've used one of them for myself. Yes, they're an easy one. People don't quite clip them in properly and then they fall out and they're draining them.

SPEAKER_00

You were going around and just fixing them all.

SPEAKER_04

Not quite like Daniel, I know it.

SPEAKER_03

The beer economy in full swing.

SPEAKER_00

That's right.

SPEAKER_04

If you guys could sum up your journey, the journey I guess you've had, and uh perhaps where you're where you're going. If you could sum it up in one word, what would it be? I'll give you a couple of words.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I think we just go back to our motto memory's not money.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Just go make those memories, the money will come back always, and just go with what you have. Don't think you have to have the big setup, just go.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, what you're familiar with. You know, you don't have to stretch to get there, you know. Go within your means and and like we did it on a pretty tight budget and we had the time of our life. It's brilliant. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Well, guys, that's I'm I'm picturing myself out in the Kimberley and on the gib now, myself going send you lots of photos. Yeah, thanks, thanks, mate. That's good. That's as close as we can get, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, just answer the phone after 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_04

No, right, exactly. No, exactly. I know where that goes. Yeah, well, look, thank you very much for joining us. I hope you guys have an amazing trip in the new gold class caravans, the AC17. That's gonna be, yeah, that's that's a really nice van. So enjoy it and um can't wait to see what you put it through and yeah, look forward to seeing it come out the other side and yeah, look forward to hearing about your trip when you get back. So thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, it's been great.

SPEAKER_04

Enjoy the pig races this weekend for Mother's Day, and uh we'll catch up with you guys on the road somewhere.

SPEAKER_05

Yep, no worries.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mom, for joining us. Thank you, Sam. We'll uh see you and everybody else on another episode of the Off Grid Down Under Podcast. If you do like what you're seeing, please like, please subscribe, and tune in for the next episode coming up very soon.