Caravan suitable for National Parks

I should have added that my preference is for a full van and not a pop top, unless you have limited height where you park it.

Not all chassis are galvanised.

Pays to check and get it in writing. Many are painted with 'DuraGal' and sales people will tell you that its as good as galvanising.

Its not. Just paint.

bill

Your dead right Bill, many are not full gal so it pays to familiarise yourself with what galvanising looks like as opposed to what the supagal and duragal finishes look like.

Full gal is far and away the better although there some advantages and disadvantages with either type of finish from what I have read.

Cheers, Bruce

UM...while there is a duragal paint ( intended for touching up duragal steel)....duragal steel is not a paint....it is a metalic plating.....fair enough it is not as good as hot dipped gal.

But duragal steel is way better than plain blue painted steel.

cheers

If you liked your Lifestyle Camper give John from Lifestyle Campers a call as he is now making good small off road vans.

Don,
I would just look at any van which took my fancy and speak to the salesman and get a general feel for what they are telling you and after a while you will have a fair idea if they are potentially spinning you a yarn.

Full gal chassis are a major selling feature and will be a major sales point in any salesman's spiel.

Ensure that the van has 6" chassis rails as opposed to the 4" rails and the underslung truss bar or whip bar on the drawbar.

Our 24' Jayco has the whip bar but then my previous van, a Gazal Champion, which was very well built, had a 6" chassis rails and drawer bar on an 18.5' van. As I said, well built.

Don't be in a rush to buy, keep looking till you are sick of it and by that time you will have built considerable knowledge of what is good and what is bad or not so good.

You could go to a full blown off road van but it will have the full blown off road price to match so unless you are going to do a lot of rough road work I would not spend the money on them.

Jayco get a fair bagging from time to time but I am a firm believer that you get a fair amount of van for your money with them. That has been my experience and they are made for the Australian conditions.

Then again, a good second hand, there is no other sort, Gazal champion will stand you in good stead also. They were last made in 2000 as far as I know. Millard or someone are currently making a Gazal as one of their range but they are not the same I as far as I am aware. I am totally unaware of the quality going into them.

I have had experience with the two brands mentioned, namely Gazal and Jayco, but cannot speak for other brands.

Just as an aside,
I was talking to a couple of chaps who work the show circuit when they were up here at Port during the Xmas tourist season.
They said they go over to America every year to attend Carnival type Conventions and while their they buy maybe 6 vans (Travel Trailers) at a time for shipping back to Australia.

He said the first thing they do is to toughen up the chassis as the American ones are not up to the Australian conditions and invariably crack if not strengthened. His words not mine.
Mind you they do get well up into Central Queensland and the NT.

Moral of this part of the story is, buy Australian as they are made for the local conditions, don't be tempted by cheaper imported units.

If you need any more info don't hesitate to ask as the only dumb question is the one that never got asked.

Hope this helps,
Cheers, Bruce.

Don't forget, before you start considering vans, to make sure you really understand the meaning and limitations of all the weights. It is very easy to become bamboozled by salesmen who often don't understand themselves and will sell you anything. (We were caught.) Know the meaning of
Tare (empty van as delivered from factory.
ATM (weight of loaded van and the load includes water and gas)
Ball weight (down load on tow vehicle).
You also need to know the limits of your tow vehicle: total weight it can safely tow (van's ATM), ball weight allowed and load allowed in vehicle.

Once you get your head around these figures you can start thinking about Payload -how much gear you can legally carry. (The difference between ATM and Tare.) Given that water is heavy and you are likely to take around 200 kg of water, as well as gas and provisions for bush camping away from shops, it is commonly suggested that the minimum payload needs to be around 400 kg for comfort.
Some people will happily sell you a van that will be illegal if you put 200kg in it! Your life will become a misery if you have to worry about the weight of every small item all the time! Lynne