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.

Dwellingup

Dwellingup is small town in Western Australia about 130k’s from Perth and is set among pristine jarrah forest and water catchment areas.

Perhaps the big attraction in the area is the Hotham Valley Steam Train, while this is the big attraction there are others and one that does excite is the Bibbulmun Track (Western Australia's world class, 1,000 kilometre walk trail) that  passes through.

We had a great time on the old steam train – even if it was freezing by WA standards.

The Pajero Sport Mods Part Three

This next mod was the most expensive and the most thought over mod, the dual battery system. We needed a system to keep our fridge running (constant cold beer)  and power all of our first world camping essentials, iPhones, tablets, notebooks and lights.

After much research, we settled on a Redarc dual battery system based around Redarc’s BCDC 1225LV https://www.redarc.com.au/in-vehicle-battery-chargermppt-regulator-25a-lv and an Optima Yellow Top D34 battery.

Some of the features of the Redarc BCDC are:

• Multi-Stage DC to DC Battery Charger
• MPPT Solar Regulator
• Start Battery Isolator
• Fully sealed
• No fan for super quiet operation
• Charges AGM, Gel, Calcium content, VRLA and Standard Lead Acid batteries

We went with Redarc and Optima for number of reasons but the most important was that they both have a reputation for performing really well in adverse conditions.

We used a professional installation company with an excellent reputation for 4WD fit outs to install the complete system, and they did an awesome job, to look under the bonnet (hood if your in North America) you wouldn’t know that a second battery system had been installed.

If you think I’m a fan of Redarc your dead right – the Redarc gear isn’t cheap but works brilliantly. It kept our Dometic Waeco CFX 40 fridge going for three weeks, while we were camping in some of the hottest weather - most days were close to 40c and harshest terrain around. It kept the Optima charged and didn’t miss beat and we had plenty of good food and lot’s of cold beer. 

I highly recommend Redarc.

Picnic in York & Geocaching in Wandoo

We made a last minute decision to try and follow a 4WD track though the Wandoo National Park, between Perth & York. We had found the track on the Hema Maps web site and thought it sounded interesting, needless to say the directions were a little vague and involved quite a bit of back tracking.

We managed to find the track and also managed to do some Geocaching as well, team glcm was in fine form for a mighty total of two caches!!

After Wandoo it was onto York for lunch then on to a Northam to try and locate some old family homes of interest to Leanne.

A great day and an interesting day.  Some of the pics include the track @ Wandoo, “The Lolly Shop” in York  & the suspension bridge and the old hospital both in Northam

The Pajero Sport Mods Part Two

After hearing multiple horror stories about the lack of real protection provided by the standard Mitsubishi bash plates we decide to upgrade to something which would protect the PS a bit better.

We went with Boos Bash Plates – ordered online and delivered surprisingly fast http://www.boosbashplates.com.au/ they are made to fit perfectly and are one of the easiest installs possible. 

Installing them really showed why the factory plates need to be replaced and why so many other owners of the PS had had issues with intercooler damage particularly on sandy tracks or beaches. I couldn’t believe just how flimsy the factory bash plates were, in reality they were made up of some thin pressed tin and plastic, just bloody useless and in hind sight we could have caused some serious damage to our vehicle.

Overall one of the best mods we have done to our PS. They give us a sense of confidence on the tracks that we didn’t have with the standard factory ones.

The Pajero Sport Mods Part One

The PS is nearly a year old and I thought it might be good to detail some of mods.
Let’s start with the light bar – I found the high beam to completely useless for long distance travel at night. With the ever present danger of animal strikes a good auxiliary lighting set up was required.
As it turned out, due to the space limitations created by our nudge bar we were limited to pretty much a light bar. It took ages to find a bar that was going to give us not only a decent spread but also some punch down the road and not cost huge amounts of dollars – we ended up choosing a Korr 27 inch XDD600 G3 light bar http://korrlighting.com.au/shop/led-bars-driving-lights/xd-series/xdd600-g3-dual-row-light-bar/  talk about amazing white light and a great spread but it also punches out 1 lux at 600 metres which is what we needed – we have tested it numerous times and reckon we get usable light out to about 725 metres. Bang for buck it is nothing short of brilliant (pardon the pun).
We have just completed a 4,000k trip of which quite a lot of driving was done at night and it made the driving so much easier – highly recommend the Korr light bar, well priced, well made and performs exceptionally well.

WA Day Long Weekend Down South

A quick over night trip down South staying in Busselton was brilliant.
We managed to see quite a lot, from the Chocolate factory, to the Candy Cow and just about all things in between.
Perhaps the most interesting thing was the “accidental” 4WD track we took, “Three Bears”. Looking for something to do before we headed home we Googled 4WD tracks and Three Bears came up as a pretty easy track not far from Dunsborough. Well easy was far from the truth, but after a tough track in and finally getting to the Three Bears Break it was all worth it. Bloody fantastic track and scenery.

The Big Trip–Final Thoughts

All the words like amazing, awesome and brilliant could be used but probably the best would be stunning.

We covered over 4,000 kilometres, visited too many great sites to list and did things we never thought we would see, and do things we never thought we would do.  All in all just a stunning trip.

Kalbarri–The Final Stop

With the big trip nearing an end, Kalbarri was the final stop, and a chance to do some more 4WD, fishing and just relaxing.

Kalbarri is an amazing place with so much to see and do, from the gorges in the national park ,to the cliffs along the Indian Ocean, to safe swimming waters, to great fishing spots – pity we couldn’t catch one dam fish!!

Overall it was an mazing trip and probably one we wont be able to do again simply because of time – nearly three weeks away can really bite into your annual leave etc.

A few final thoughts – I am pleased we had a 4wd as we were able to see and do so many things we wouldn’t have been able to do if we hadn’t had one. I am even happier that we had done a 4WD course and had some genuine 4WD experience before we attempted this trip.

Denham–Peron National Park–Monkey Mia

On the long road home and the first stop is Shark Bay at the Denham Seaside Village. What an amazing area and with a 4WD we got so much more than we had when had last visited.

Monkey Mia was amazing – just to see the dolphins so close up is an experience that everyone should have.

Peron National Park was simply amazing. I had been waiting for a long time to tackle this park as it’s 4WD only and for the novice 4WD’er that I am quite a challenge. If you ever get the chance to get out there just go. It is great. We visited Big Lagoon and Herald Bight and just had fun using our 4WD as it should be used.

The Big Trip–Coral Bay & Exmouth

We left in the early hours of the morning and smashed the trip out in one go. Although it sounds tough it was actually pretty easy with regular stops, good driving lights  and two drivers it’s the way to go. We were touring with the Makinson’s and the two Mitzi’s were superb!

Coral Bay was awesome as always with stunning weather, which actually got a bit too hot late in the afternoons. We managed to do quite a few things this time including, Five Fingers 4WD track , shark nursery – with no sharks, the snorkel drift and the glass bottom boat tour. C-Bay was great.

Exmouth was interesting, as all the beaches in the Cape Range National Park were full of Jelly Fish including the quite painful and sometimes deadly Irukandji jellyfish. The overwhelming vote for best thing on the trip was the Exmouth Public Pool – just bloody fantastic. See some of our pics below or visit our web site for more.