Our Set-Up

The car

Our car is a Toyota Landcruiser Prado 120 series from 2004. We went for this car because it came with a few things we knew we needed for the trip: a roof rack, steel bull bar, electric winch, 2-inch suspension lift, dual battery space under the hood and a snorkel. The car also runs on diesel and has a dual fuel tank with 160 L capacity (about 1200 km) – something we knew would be important for long drives in rural Australia. We also went with a Toyota as we knew if we needed repairs, parts are common and easier to get compared with other brands. Head to the Preparation page for more information about the process we went through to buy our car.

Checklist:

If you are driving around Australia there is a high chance of hitting a kangaroo or other animal crossing the road. Steel over alloy is the way to go.

To get to some of the best locations you will have to cross even shallow rivers to get there. A snorkel makes sure your engine gets clean oxygen.

These prevent damage to the car from large rocks when off-roading. Our car didn’t have side steps so we had these installed and they’re great for protection as well as giving us a little more reach (we’re both a little vertically challenged).

Great for long stretches of highway if you want to find out what’s happening ahead or overtake a road train. Keep your UHF on channel 40 for highway driving. Also useful for 4WD tracks with friends and convoys!

For pulling yourself out of sticky situations. Our car came with a 12,000lb (5 tonne) winch already installed which is enough to get us out of most situations.

We wanted a roof top tent so needed this for mounting the tent. Also good for carrying extra fuel (in 20L jerry cans), water, gas bottles, recovery tracks and anything else that isn’t great to keep in the car that you can fit onto the rack.

Necessary for recovery situations. These are a safe point to attach any shackles or straps to pull your car out when it gets stuck. These must be rated to the weight of your vehicle (it should say it is rated on the gear itself).

To run a fridge 24/7, LED lights when it’s dark, and to charge devices, we bought a 100 amp hour (AH) lead acid battery which works like a deep cycle battery and is set up under the hood of the car. We also bought a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter which has two 240V inputs for charging appliances.

It’s best practice to air out your tyres when driving on unsealed roads (especially if corrugated), sand and rough terrain. Start off by airing down about 20% and work your way down. For sand driving, we air down to about 20 psi and decrease by 2 psi at a time if necessary (for very soft sand, you could air down to 15 psi). For rough corrugations, we usually start off around 28 or 30 psi and decrease by 2 psi if it’s feeling particularly bumpy.

Our air compressor hooks up to the main battery and gets our tyres back to normal psi for sealed roads (for our car, that’s 38 psi). We’ll usually stop at the next servo anyway to make sure our tyres are at the right pressure.

Living arrangements

When you’re living out of your car long-term, you want things to be as simple and organised as possible. Everything is a work in progress for us and we are often re-organising things and getting closer to our ideal set-up. We did plenty of research before deciding what to go with. Head to Preparation to read more about the process we went through to set-up our living quarters.

Checklist:

We decided to go with a rooftop tent (RTT) set up. Not only is it quick and simple to set up and pack down, it’s also comfortable and well ventilated. Sleeping on top of the car also has its advantages when you are camping in places with snakes and crocodiles. We went shopping and found that the Adventure Kings Tourer RTT was a good fit for us and within our budget. While these are on the cheaper side compared to some other RTTs on the market, we have had no problems with it at all and find it great value for money.

To make it as comfortable as possible we added a foam egg shell topper we bought from Clarkes Rubber. We have a nice and warm double sized sleeping bag (Oztrail Nullarbor Double) with a sleeping bag liner, all of which folds up inside the tent when packing up, saving us room inside the car.

For a little extra room when camping for prolonged periods, we bought a 4-man Adventure Kings Annex which zips onto the bottom of the RTT. It takes about 2 minutes to attach and gives us plenty of room to get changed inside or even prepare food or eat on rainy or windy days.

Our car came with an Adventure Kings 2.5 x 2.5 metre awning mounted to the side of the roof rack. It’s super easy to set-up and great for shade on sunny days and shelter on rainy days. We also bought an awning wall which attaches to the awning and provides a bit of extra shelter – but we haven’t had the need for it yet.

After doing plenty of research, we went with an Adventure Kings 60L fridge*. It runs at 0.7 amps per hour, so can be powered up to 4 days using our aux battery. It holds 80 tinnies and if wanted, can be set to temperatures below zero for freezing (we only use ours as a fridge and have it set to 3°C.

* there are plenty of folks out there who advise against our choice of fridge, but we’ve had no problems so far and it hasn’t missed a beat.

Aside from our three Titan drawers that we installed in the back of the car which keep our dry food, kitchen utensils and 4WD recovery gear, we bought a few 50L storage tubs from Bunnings. We use one tub each for our clothing and toiletries, which stack one on top of the other in the middle section of the car (we removed the middle seats for extra space). We have another 50L tub which sits on top of an extra fridge slide that came with the car where we keep our shoes (best to keep these separate to clothes as they get seriously muddy/sandy), and another 50L tub which we keep in the middle section of the car for miscellaneous items such as a solar shower, extension leads and powerboard, battery charger, thermos, kettle, and anything else that’s loose in the car. It’s good to have a bit of extra space for things we buy on the road (mostly stubby holders as we’re building up our collection).

To keep our aux battery topped up, we have a 200 watt solar blanket. We chose to go with a blanket rather than a panel as it is far lighter and smaller, though has it’s disadvantages as well (e.g. it doesn’t prop up on the ground like a solar panel does).

In addition to this, we also invested in a battery charger. This plugs into a 240V outlet and attaches directly to the positive and negative terminals on the aux battery which we generally leave on overnight when we have a powered site. We find this helps to keep our battery in good health, especially when we haven’t had much sun.

We use a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter to charge our appliances when on the road. This is hooked up to the aux battery and also has a couple USB ports.

Cast iron set (large dutch oven, small pan, jaffle iron)
Medium pot, large pan
Strainer/colander
Two sets of knives, spoons and forks
Two sets of bowls and plates
Two mugs
Kitchen knives
Chopping board
Wooden spoon, spatula, tongs
Cleaning items (sponge, biodegradable detergent)
Thermos (1.2L)
Whistling kettle (2L)
Tupperware for leftovers
Reusable beeswax food wraps (instead of glad wrap!)
Kitchen scissors
Tea towel

Two tables (one kitchen table and one smaller table)
Two camping chairs
Paper towels
Zip lock bags
Double stove top (Dune 4WD)
Biodegradable soap (we use Dr Bronners and use this for hand soap, dishwashing and showers!)
Toilet paper
First aid kit
Small fire extinguisher
Two 22L heavy duty water jerry cans
20L jerry can with extra diesel
4 kg gas cylinder (we keep this on the roof rack in a gas cylinder holder)
20L solar shower
Hot water bottle (we would chuck this in the sleeping bag before bedtime on cold nights)
Recovery tracks
Spare car parts and oils (break fluid, engine oil, transmission fluid, radiator hoses and belt and alternator belts)
Jumper cables
Portable fire pit
Personal Locating Beacon (PLB) for emergencies
Fishing rods and scaling knife
Insect repellent
Sunscreen
GoPro