Advice needed from Wombat and other Coromal Silhouette owners

For what its worth , I know people who have taken 'ordinary' small vans into Palm Valley - if you take it slow, you crawl over the rock shelves into Palm Valley with almost anything - its the corrugations and rocky roads that seem to threaten the lighter built vans - roads around the Chamber's area (like many other places) can be hell at times, due to traffic volumes. I think many vans can survive bad roads BUT the biggest issue is preservation of your assett. I recently bought an off road camper that I hope will withstand the poor conditions - if you damage the van type units, the probably expensive repairs have to be done before you can even trade or sell it. I could well do with the interior comfort of an off-road van, but took the view that the rough roads I still want to cover would be too harsh. Have seen some kick-butt vans in a caravan mag recently - all interior goodies AND tough lower side for real tough roads (would expect very high cost though).

Highlands,
Some people choose to protect their van by not shaking the daylights out of it on rocky corrugated roads and set up a base to do smaller trips from the van with a tent.If you want something tough you can take anywhere the van will have a fancy price tag.Track trailers famous for the bullet proof T van make a small caravan which is set up for outback touring.The one i saw had solar panels,very tough build etc and a price of over 50k.The other tough as you like van is from Trakmaster a Melbourne company but with many distributors.This van comes in various layouts and you can see the toughness in build quality the moment you set foot in it.Once again its a case of pay for what you get with these vans.
The van from Track is called the All Terrain and can be seen www.tracktrailer.com
Trakmaster are at www.trakmaster.com.au
If you get a chance the caravan and camping shows offer plenty of comparisons.
cheers mark

Highlands

Cant help with the mag - but there are several in the shops.

you could get considerable info on vans on the caravanners forum -
http://groups.msn.com/Caravanersforum/_messageboard.msnw

As a matter of interest I think the kick-but vans being spoken of are the Kedron ATV or the Bushtracker - but be prepared to part with 70K plus for the priveledge of owning one of these.

Jan & Lionel,

In the last twelve months we have taken our Silhouette 420 X2 into Woods Point in very wet conditions, through the Buckland Valley and up through the centre to Litchfield and Kakadu via the Oodnadatta Track (just after it re-opened). When we are camping we tend to take our time in an endeavour to experience as many "moments in time" rather than just racing through the minutes in a day, and to this end the Coromal suits us perfectly. It takes about 15 minutes to set up and marginally less than that to prepare for the road.

We currently tow our camper behind a 3.0litre petrol Mitsubishi Triton dual cab and most of the time you can hardly tell it's there. Having hauled a full height caravan for a while many years ago there was no way I was ever going to regress to the days of needing a valium at the end of each days travel. On the bitumen the low profile and independent suspension of the Silhouette allows us to comfortably sit on speeds above 130kmh where it was safe to do so, while on the dirt the camper has not sustained any damage from the ordeals which we have put it through thus far. As the second vehicle of two on the dustiest section of the Oodnadatta Track we had a barely discernable layer of dust on the benchtops at the end of the day, whilst unfortunately our travelling companions were inundated with dust.

When we were in the red centre we made a conscious decision to see as much of the East MacDonnell Ranges in the limited time which we had and leave Kings Canyon and the West MaDonnell Ranges until our next central Australian trip, so I cannot comment with any experience on the two routes which you have queried. But, having looked at Ruby Gap and crossed Ross River into N'Dhala Gorge I would humbly suggest that the Coromal would be more than capable of either of your chosen destinations, as long as you take your time and allow for the fact that you have a lot of weight behind you. Of course your ability to cross sand dunes will be very much determined by the capabilities of your towing vehicle.

Obviously you have done your research and have discovered the many positive aspects of the Silhouette so the motive of your post is to ascertain any negatives, so I shall try to find some:
The towball weight of the 4.2 (IMHO) is relatively excessive and we have added storage boxes to the rear bumper to compensate for this. Our accountant who has recently ordered a 420 X1 is contemplating adding his dirt bike to the rear of his Silhouette when he gets it.
Slide on end flys and annexe awnings are a PITA! We are in the process of having ours modified to fixed bags for this reason.
Storage space above bench level is non-existent, but we have solved this problem with a plastic set of four drawers which sits in the corner of the bench top when camping and travels on top of one of the seats.

Hopefully this information will be useful to you in your quest. If you have any further queries simply post your email address and I will try to answer them in an unbiased manner.

Good luck with your decision!