What have been doing?

Well it’s long time between posts and have we done a few things or what!

We spent a lot of our time getting our camper set for the big trek to The Big Red Bash - http://www.bigredbash.com.au/bigredbash/index. It meant virtually crossing the entire country

The Big Red Bash is the most isolated music festival in the world some 3.300 kilometres from our home.

The Big Red Bash is a magical, uniquely Australian outback experience where people of all ages and nationalities are welcome. Since its launch in 2013, this family-friendly combo of desert camping and concerts has grown in popularity to become a ‘must-do’ bucket-list event.

Every year, iconic Aussie musicians head to Birdsville, on the edge of the Simpson Desert in south-west Queensland. They travel out of town towards Big Red – the highest sand dune in the Simpson Desert. And there, under a vast, star-speckled canopy they spend three nights entertaining people from all around Australia and beyond.

Birdsville’s Big Red Bash brings people together for the world’s most remote concert. Everyone’s welcome, from family groups and grey nomads with a taste for outback adventure, to backpackers working through their Aussie bucket lists.

Along the way we crossed the Nullabor, checked out parts of South Australia, drove the iconic Birsdville Track, had a drink at the Mungerannie Pub. and more drinks at the3 Birdsville Pub.

2018 Update

Well it’s been a while between posts, so I guess a quick update is needed.

Christmas,New Year and Easter have come and gone and we are now into Autumn.

We spent Xmas at home with all the kids and had a great time, before we moved to Cervantes for New Years, which probably wasn’t a good choice as it blew and blew and essentially ruined a camping trip. To be fair it did convince us that if we wanted to continue camping we needed to make some changes.

Easter we spent in Geraldton and the wind normally blows there but we were fortunate enough to have a great weekend in our new hard floor camper.

As I mentioned earlier we decided that if we were to continue camping we need to find something to make it more comfortable and easier all around, so we ended up buying a hard floor camper from MDC – the Cruiser Slide with a queen and double bed. It now makes camping five star.

 

It is a great bit of kit and sets up in just few minutes with full kitchen and more storage than our home!

We've also had birthdays and trips down South but the big one we are planning is a trip to the Big Red Bash – the worlds most remote music festival on the edge of the Simpson desert on the most famous sand dune in the Simmo -  Big Red. I’ll be telling everyone that we've done the Simmo. http://www.bigredbash.com.au/bigredbash/index It’s only 3,280 kilometres from home to Birdsville, the closet town to the festival. Interestingly the population of Birdsville is 115 and there will be 6,000 – 7,000 people at the festival.  https://www.queensland.com/en-US/attraction/big-red

Products & Brands Team GLCM Are Happy To Recommend Part One

Redarc – because their products are some the best in world and they do not fail and they are Australian made. Our 4WD is kitted out fully with Redarc gear and it is sensational, most importantly it keeps the fridge going which means cold beer and food – the beer being the important one there. https://www.redarc.com.au/

Dometic/Waeco – we have a Dometic/Waeco CFX 40 litre fridge and it is superb. It lives in the 4wd and keeps the shopping cool and the beers and food fresh and cold for expeditions. The big plus is it doesn't use a lot of power. We also have a Dometic/Waeco ice box which seems to keep ice for ever, and it is just an all round AMAZING product https://www.dometic.com/en-au/au

Kathmandu – we love the gear from Kathmandu, except that it is so expensive unless you can get on one of their regular sales. We really like their head torches and strangely their camping cutlery set, we are also very fond of their children/teen size rash vest for the hot  Aussie sun. We use their steel vacuum drink bottles, they keep our drinks cold and drinkable all day and finally the Kathmandu sleeping bags, they are only a lightweight Spring/Summer sleeping bag but they are well made and do what they are supposed to do, https://www.kathmandu.com.au/camp-and-hike/sleeping-gear/sleeping-bags/nomadic-semi-rectangular-sleeping-bag.html

Columbia – Another brand that seems be high quality, they have a fantastic range of outdoor gear and it is generally well priced. Their Bora Bora Booney hats are great in our high UV environment  https://www.columbia.com/bora-bora-ii-booney-CU9107.html?cgid=men-accessories-hats&dwvar_CU9107_variationColor=160#start=0  as it turns out we have quite a bit of Columbia gear including jackets and shoes and all come highly recommended

Keen – I really struggled to find a decent pair of hiking shoes, I tried a pair of Keen Gypsum Ox Men's and they are without doubt the best hiking and general all round shoe I have ever had. They were so comfy I went back and bought a second pair. My wife describes my feet as Yeti like!! http://www.keenfootwear.com.au/Product/Men/Trailhead/Gypsum-Ox-Mens--Magnet-Red-Clay

The Gear Team GLCM Use & Carry

This is by no means the full list and we don’t carry all of these items on every expedition, so here goes.

2 x Oricom handheld UHF

Uniden 5 watt in car UHF

Satellite phone

1 x set of recovery tracks

Full recovery kit

3 x Jarvis Walker fishing roads and reels – for not catching anything!!

3 x Coleman camp chairs

Colman camp stove

Repco Inverter

110 watt flexible solar panel

3 x Kathmandu head torches

Magellan 610 GPS

Sunscreen and lots of it

Bug repellent and heaps of it

Primus 44 amp hour battery pack

Pajero Sport Mods Part Five

We finally got the UHF installed – it only took about three months!!

As I said in a previous post its an Uniden 8060 5 watt in car unit with remote mike. https://www.uniden.com.au/AUSTRALIA/p_uh8060s_index.asp

We had an auto sparky do the install and to be honest I'm pleased we used as it was little more complicated that I thought it would be. The unit is completely hidden and given how little space there is in the PS I surprised how he managed to hide everything except the mike.

How important a UHF is depends upon your point of view and where you travel. In a convoy situation they are almost vital as they allow uninterrupted communication between convoy members.

If your travelling up North with lots of wide loads and huge road trains everywhere, they are also important in terms of comms from the truckies and assisting in overtaking them.

The most loved feature is the ability to change the colour of the mike – it’s currently pink!!

It’s a solid that does all that it needs to do and is easy to use.

Avon Descent 2017

An early morning trip to Northam for the start of the Avon Descent 2017 apparently one the worlds great white water events, and then onto York with various stops in between to view those brave enough to risk the icy water for this awesome race.

It was amazing to watch the paddlers leave Northam on such a cold morning knowing that they had somewhere between 4 – 6 hours of paddling before their overnight rest stop. Very impressive stuff.

The Pajero Sport Mods and Accessories Part Four

I’ve been looking at the car and found more stuff we have added, starting with:

Thule Wing Bars and Thule Pro Bars – we have both because the Pro bars a little wider and on the occasion we need to carry and extra gear we use the wider bars. Thule are an exceptional company and offer service that is nothing short of brilliant. We also have a Thule roof box which is perfect for our camping gear.

Yakima Bike rack, the Double Down 4, another brilliant bit of kit that keeps our bikes safe and with us when ever we we need them. To be honest I really wanted the Thule bike rack but the pricing was over the top expensive. The Yakima is really good and we are super happy with it.

Uniden 8060 UHF, we have just added the Uniden 8060 UHF to our kit and I’m hoping it will be a big improvement over our little two watt hand held UHF radios

Other stuff that comes our trips includes a couple of sit on kayaks, bikes, cameras,recovery tracks etc and a huge amount of camping gear that I will list in another blog.  Yes we have a huge amount of gear.

A pic of the mighty PS with the Thule roof box.