Will an A'van limit us? Kakadu, Lawn Hill, Kimberleys etc

Purnululu access requires a unit designed for offroad.

Lawn hill very rough , canarvon gorge can be corrugated, leave your rooftop tent on and leave the van in storage for the offroad trips. Purnulul cant take vans in, but can be left at the park on the outskirts!!! Most caravanparks allow you to store your van while you do side trips!!!!

Hi Peter

I have to disagree with the comment re Lawn Hill. If you come in through Gregory which is all bitumen, you will have less than 40 kilometres of dirt between there and Adels Grove, broken up into 3 sections.

Just slow down and take your time and you will not have any issues. There were many stock standard family cars, eg Ford Falcons and Commodores towning standard full length non off road caravans with no issues what so ever.

Stay at Adels Grove which in my opinion is a lot better that staying in the National Park at Lawn Hill. There are many great walks and most importantly, make sure you kayak the Lawn Hill Gorge....it is an absolute must do.


In most areas, slow down and drive to the conditions that you feel comfortable with and you should be fine.


Have a great trip.




Cheers




Stephen

Hi Peter,

Back in 207 we had a Cruiseliner which we loved but at that point we had confined ourselves to east coast National Parks. On some of those trips there were longish dirt access roads and dust was a problem. I did a lot of work inventing and making dust covers for all the vents, the perimeter, the long hinges and the two-part door. I had the 3-way fridge operating reasonably well on 12V but with the fridge vent cover in place it would not work, as expected, and the covers had to be removed when not required and replaced when back on the dirt.

We took it on one outback trip, from Sydney to Carnarvon Gorge. There was only about 50km of good dirt road from memory, the rest of it was sealed. But in QLD those sealed roads on black soil were bouncy and uneven. No big deal, but the suspension was working hard all the time.

The microwave met us at the door on one occasion and much of the light-weight ply cabinet work which was held together with plastic fittings (no glue) had to be re-tightened and reinforced. The bed platform came adrift and the battery was not sufficcicently clamped down 20kg of battery held in place by a fabric strap and two wood screws. It was never going to work.

On returning home, further inspetion revealed that all the long hinges for the triangular side walls had 6 inck long cracks which I attribute to the constant bouncing on the black soil roads.

All this is after only one outback trip. With more outback travel on our agenda we sold the Cruiseliner and replaced it with something far more solid.

Despite the factory " lift" I do not believe the Cruiseliner is suitable for what you want to do and will cause you heartbreak. It's a great little camper for light duty but unsuitable for your planned trip. I think you need to find an alternative.

Cheers

We followed an Avan camper across the Anne Beadell piloted by a couple in their seventies.

Only about 20kms of gravel road to get to Takkarakka CP at Carnarvon Gorge, which is the only place you can camp. Wasn't too bad - but watch for the cattle grids, which were a bit higher than the road surface!
Road from Gregory Downs to Adels Grove is usually reasonable - depends when graded. People from Mt Isa regularly come up for weekends, that way, in conventional cars and plenty of tourists with conventional vans. The section from Adels to the National Park tends to be the roughest - another argument for staying at Adels!
Kakadu roads should be fine, ditto Litchfield NP - don't miss this.
Only visited Eungella once, long time ago - my memory is of a steep, winding road to get up there. Others might be able to comment about towing up there.

We had an AVan for 10 years until 2011, and took it into a number of the places you mentioned without serious problems. Most of them are accessible mainly on bitumen or good gravel, and you should have no difficulty if you drive to the conditions. Our AVan made it across the Gibb and into to Lawn Hill among other destinations.

Hi Peter!
We owned an AVan for a few years and only sold it when hubby's work changed and it faced a few years unused in the garage. We are not fans of canvas and loved it. We mainly did tar but it did Carnarvon easily. We did Kakadu without a van a few years ago but don't remember it as being that bad...
I've learned that when you (or I!) enquire about roads, it can be very much a case of the ol' "how long is a piece of string" conundrum...
Last June, hubby and I came unstuck on the Savannah Way, 77km east of Borroloola. After we limped it back into town we discovered that we were simply the latest in a long list of vehicles to come to grief because the road was absolutely horrendous (we'd just done the Plenty and the Tanami and the Gibb, and the Savannah was in the OMG category on its own). It hadn't been graded for over a year (political reasons). But a month or so later it was graded and was probably as smooth as the proverbial for the next travellers (who would have thought it was a superb road!).
We are (hopefully) doing Cape York this July in our tough-as-nails little home-made trailer.
We then face the task of choosing a "real" van to replace it. Like you, it'll then be a case of "will we be able to do that road", "can we get there"...
It's hard to know in many cases until you get there and go by your own gut feeling! Hubby reluctantly gave up on his Kalumburu dream last year on our Kimberley trek when he saw the road's condition and talked to others.
We think we may end up packing a little tent into the van somewhere for those times that we are so close and could unhitch and push on further without the van.
It's damn hard to know the answer...that's why we've taken 3 years to work out what van we'll be buying after the trailer goes.

Robyn :)

Re the Bungle Bungles
about 6 years ago when we were there the volunteer "Camp Host" had brought in an A van with I believe a flipped axle.

He said that he had to remove the rear jacks to get across the steep creek crossings, and AFAIR he had a problem with the large hinge at the back.

So really an unappealing idea to take an Avan into the Bungle Bungles and the rangers would probably be cross , but it has been done.

Probably not such a need now that there is a caravan storage facility at the start of the track in. Previously you had to go to Turkey Creek or risk leaving the van in the open on a creek bank down the road.
Regards Philip A

Most of the areas are covered so here is a little about Eungella. You can come into Eungella the back way via Lissie creek Road. Lissie creek road was closed about 3 weeks ago when I went through but there was nothing wrong with it, except for a washout that had a good detour round it. It is a fair bit of dirt but it was very good. You can camp at Mt Britton on the way through and there is only about 6 K's of good dirt on the way in. Moonlight creek dam camping area a little further along from Mt Britton is not suitable for your A van. It is pretty flat going all the way in past Eungella dam to Broken River and then it starts to get a little winding but is good road. Down the range and on to Mackay is fairly steep and winding but really no problem, if you have a uhf radio just listen for any trucks calling as you need to give them room on the bends. Not many trucks use the road but there is the odd one.

Have a good trip

We did a trip a couple of years ago with a few families and one of them took an A Van. It pretty much shook to pieces on the corrugations and the water tank fell off. The cupboard doors were wrecked and it was sold as soon as they got back.