Preparation

Finding a car

Your first decision is what type of vehicle suits your needs and wants for touring the country. There are a variety of choices – vans, 4WDs, motorhomes, and cars trailing caravans and camper trailers. Each have their pros and cons, so it’s important to do your research and ask yourself some key questions. Do you want to go off-roading? Do you mind a bit of setting up and packing down? Are you after comfort and luxury or affordability and accessibility?

For us, we knew we wanted to get off the beaten track and have access to those places only a 4WD can get to. We also wanted to stay on the cheaper side of things and have a reasonably simple set-up. Also, being just the two of us, we didn’t need a huge amount of space. We decided on a 4WD as we were after adventure and this ticked all the boxes.

Safety and reliability is obviously a top priority when choosing a car. Outback Australia is also extremely remote in some areas, so it’s important to pick a fairly common make and model in case you need repairs or new parts (and let’s face it, this is almost inevitable if you’re going off-road and driving hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per week). Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan are generally popular choices, so these are the makes we were looking for.

Fuel efficiency is another priority. Fuel in Australia isn’t cheap and can get seriously expensive in remote regions. While petrol cars are a popular choice in the city, diesel is more fuel efficient for longer drives. It can also be more prevalent in the outback, so for these reasons, we decided to go with a diesel engine.

Depending on how you plan on using your vehicle will decide what features and modifications you need. For starters, we knew we needed a bullbar and roofrack, so we restricted our search to cars with these features already on the car. For off-roading, recovery points are essential and a snorkel is preferable. If you know you’ll be doing some tough tracks, you’ll probably want an electric winch. Lastly, a UHF radio is seriously useful and some would say essential for outback driving. These can all be expensive additions to a car, so we were looking for a car with all, or at least most, of the above. For more on our vehicle set-up, head to the set-up page.

We found this part of the process one of the most time consuming and frustrating. There’s a variety of sources online that make it (reasonably) easy to search for the right car for you. We used the following:

Gumtree
eBay
Facebook Marketplace
Carsales.com
Pickles Auctions
Second-hand car dealers

Make sure you use filters to restrict the number of search results to make your life easier!

We went to look at four different cars before settling on one – a 2004 Toyota Landcruiser Prado 120 series we found on Gumtree.

There are a few important things to look out for and do while inspecting a car. Ideally, you want a record of any previous services and work done on the car. Next, make sure you take the car for a test drive to see how things feel. Lastly, it’s super important to get someone over to make sure the car is mechanically sound. We called a mobile mechanic to do a pre-purchase inspection. Though this set us back $250, it is well worth ensuring the car doesn’t have too much wrong with it (though it should be expected that you’ll need to spend a little money on getting the car into shape for touring).

In Australia, it is compulsory to have third-party car insurance, a basic level of cover for damage caused by you to other people’s cars or property. For touring, it’s advisable to also get roadside assistance (in case of breakdowns or flat batteries) and comprehensive insurance, which covers you for a variety of things including theft, fire and other types of damage to the car. And take it from us – make sure you read the fine print!

4WD training

We were keen to get the car dirty before heading off on our adventure. To get some great experience with supervision, learn about your car capabilities and different types of recovery and safety, we joined a 4WD club. There’s a bunch of different 4WD clubs out there, so do some research and pick one which best suits you based on price, location and when they offer training. Most clubs will offer both beginner and advanced training courses for members.

Our training weekend away was on the 4WD club land near Goulburn, NSW. It was a rainy weekend which meant some muddy tracks. We drove through some tough terrain and purposely got ourselves bogged so we could pull ourselves out using our own recovery gear. It was definitely worth the weekend away.

Setting up a touring vehicle

Like every other choice, there’s few options to choose from when it comes to camping – tents, swags and rooftop tents being the most popular.

We went with a rooftop tent (RTT) as it keeps you off the ground, is well ventilated and seemed to make the most sense to us for touring. Next is to decide which type of RTT you want and which brand to go for. While a hard shell RTT is more heavy duty, it is generally far more expensive. We were conscious of our budget, so we opted for the cheaper soft RTT which set us back around $800 (bought new, this is pretty much the cheapest we could find and seemed more than appropriate for us and our needs).

We also opted to get an annex which can be attached to the bottom of the tent. This gives us heaps of extra space and protection from the elements, especially if it’s rainy and you want a comfortable place to get changed.

While the RTT comes with a foam mattress, we bought an egg shell topper for a bit of extra comfort which was well worth it if you’re sleeping on it every night. The great thing about this is you can leave it inside the tent when packing up (we don’t think you can do this with a hard shell RTT!). All in all, it’s about a 5 minute set-up that basically involves taking off the RTT cover, folding out the tent, setting up the windows for ventilation and you’re good to go!

These days it’s pretty much essential to have some source of power. For us, we wanted to power a fridge 24/7, have LED lights running at night and charge our appliances when necessary. A second (or auxiliary) battery will do the trick for this.

There are many battery types to choose from. A lithium-ion battery is the most efficient but also the most expensive. Wet cell batteries are great but must be housed externally as they emit gasses. AGM deep cycle batteries are probably the most common and the most ideal if a lithium-ion battery is out of your budget.

Since our car has space under the hood for a second battery, we went for a 100Ah (amp hour) wet cell battery system (which is classified as a deep cycle battery). We have it wired up to a control box in the rear of the car to plug devices into, as well as a power inverter which we use to charge appliances using 240V. We went for a 100Ah (amp hour) battery, which we worked out would suit our needs fine as we would be using approximately 25Ah a day.

When driving, the alternator gives a bit of charge to the second battery while simultaneously charging the main battery. This is done using a smart isolator, or Voltage Sensitive Relay, which allows the aux battery to be charged up to a point. This doesn’t quite give the battery enough charge, so we use a 200W solar blanket to top up the battery whenever we are parked (and there is sunshine!). After having a few issues with the battery not charging up properly (especially after a few overcast days), we also bought a 20 amp 240V battery charger. This plugs in at a power source and we leave it hooked up to the aux battery overnight to get a full charge.

Having enough drinking water is a top priority when roadtripping around Australia and it’s essential to have a decent water storage system in place. Water tanks can be great if you have the space for it as they carry a lot of water, but we were space conscious and also liked the idea of not having all our water coming from one source (in case of any leaks or contamination), so we bought two heavy duty 22L jerry cans. We also carry a few water bottles which we keep filled up (and a couple in the fridge for those hot days).

Ideally, you want to keep your water topped up at all times. Petrol stations will often have drinking water taps where you can fill up (make sure you ask first), but we mostly go for drinking water taps at caravan parks and showgrounds. Taps will generally have a sign indicating the water is not potable (i.e. not drinkable), but it’s always best to ask if you can. We bought some water purification tablets in case of any emergencies which we have yet to use, but it’s good to have for peace of mind. For those with caravans, inline water filters are great but aren’t really suitable for our jerry can set-up.

We bought a 60L 12V fridge which is powered by our aux battery. The fridge can also be used as a freezer, but because Muzz is a vegetarian, we don’t need to store any frozen meat so we keep our fridge at 3°C. For us, a 60L fridge was more than enough (storing up to 80 tinnies – a high priority for us). For dry foods, we use one of our drawers as a pantry. Zip lock bags are really handy for keeping opened packets fresh without the worry of ants so should be an essential travel item.

For cooking, we bought a dual burner stove and 4 kg LPG gas bottle for fuel. Butane cooking stoves are fine for weekend getaways but a 4 kg bottle should last for months and are easy to refill at camping stores or Swap-and-Go at most servos. Gas bottles should be kept outside the vehicle so we’ve fitted ours onto the roof rack using a gas bottle holder.

Keeping your car organised makes life easier, so it’s a great idea to work out your storage needs and have a bit of a system in place. We installed three drawers into the back of the car. One has a fridge slide integrated for easy access to the fridge, and our car also came with a separate fridge slide which we’ve put a storage container on top of where we keep our shoes. We use one of the drawers as a pantry, the second for kitchen items and the third for 4WD recovery gear and spare oil and car parts.

We bought a couple extra storage containers which we use to keep our clothes and other loose items. For more info on this, head to our set-up.

Trip planning

This one generally comes down to whether you like to plan in advance or take each day as it comes. We were in-between these, mostly because of the coronavirus pandemic which forced us to do a bit of pre-planning as some places were closed or now required you to book in advance.

Whether you like to plan or not, there is still an important decision to make: clockwise or anti-clockwise? This decision is dependent on when you are planning on setting off and for how long. Far northern Australia experiences a wet season that usually lasts from November – March, with many road closures and places off limits. It’s also extremely hot and often very humid in these regions, making it far more pleasant and comfortable in the dry season, April – October. The tropical climates of northern Australia dictated our decision to head anti-clockwise from Sydney (we planned to leave in March). This would mean we’d be travelling the tropics during winter (more accurately the dry season – it’s still bloody hot in most of these places!) and explore the southern half of the country in the summer months.

Figuring out your budget is a good place to start when deciding where you choose to camp. Sometimes, though, you aren’t left with much choice, especially when you’re close to the coast where there isn’t much free camping. Prices can vary greatly depending on whether you choose to camp in caravan parks, campgrounds or national parks.

National Park campgrounds are usually quite cheap and often close to popular tourist destinations. You generally need a permit which you can either obtain online or on-site. Be sure to have a look online before heading to camp in a national park as different states have different rules (for example, you need to pre-book online and print out your permits if you are in NSW and Queensland, but you can pay on-site in the Northern Territory). Depending on the park, you may need a park pass/permit, or even a vehicle permit, in addition to a camping permit. Campgrounds in national parks that we have experienced so far have been great, with plenty of space and generally clean amenities. Be sure to bring your own firewood if you plan on having a campfire as it is illegal to collect firewood within national parks.

Campsites outside of national parks can be a bit more expensive (generally they are between $10 and $20), but free campgrounds are out there! Wikicamps is an excellent source for finding where to camp, where you can filter sites to fit your requirements (e.g free camps only, water facilities, toilets, showers). We find that every now and then, we like to book a powered site at either a campground or caravan park so we can charge up our battery and devices. These are generally around $30 per night, but can be more expensive depending on the place. Again, WikiCamps is great for comparing prices and we find it especially useful to read recent reviews.