the purpose of fridges?

quote "I carry a fiberglass icebox if going to really hot places or hot weather"

Thats modern though . . . I would suggest your not really roughing it afterall.

I think you should be carrying a meat safe.

Your're quite right Shaggy. On my first trip to the Cape I was able to get by with an esky for four of us buying frozen milk along the way. But on the last trip took a fridge and seperate freezer for only two of us and I have to tell you it was a more comfortable trip. Even with the fridges mucking up due to power problems it was nice to be able to trow that barra in the freezer for later.

I guess you do become a slave to 12 volt DC and yes it can become complex and expensive but man its nice to have these comforts. Give me these gadgets anytime to squeeze in as much comfy time away from home - its the only way I'll be able to drag the bride out there!

Kind regards

shaggy
think your last line says it all to some extent.
for me personally i have not found an alternative to a car powered fridge able to keep supplies cool enough to last more than 3 or 4 days.
also frommy view it makes financial sense to buy a fridge and power off your car rather than continually buying ice and sometimes travelling extreme distances to top up the esky with ice
i could go on and on in relation to my views but like everything here its all personal choice.
i lived for yrs and yrs with an esky until i started doing more remote trips and to be honest would not know how to go back 50yrs and live without a fridge.
also my view is(and many say i miss out on a lot) that if you cant get a 4wd there its not worth seeing
hehehehe-might get some abusive replys and totally different view to yours and many others but sh.. happens hey
might go grab a frosty from the fridge

Shaggy,
To each his own I suppose.
I have an insatiable taste for wine. I like red so chilling is not so important but SWMBO is keen on a drop or two of white but it must be COLD.
And this will upset the true campers.... it's gotta be out of a proper GLASS wine glass!!!

I'm well aware of the physics of evaporative coolers, (this type of air conditioner ain't too good on the coast where humidity is high).
I belive the shearers drank champagne in the 1890s at the end of that famous strike. The wine was chilled under wet bags.
What physical things to you use/do to chill the beer. In a box with wet bags or have you built something more substantial?

Hi Shaggy, good post keep us questioniong what we are getting awya from and waht we take with us. On the health side I am a health freak and know a thing our two about it. You should be careful if you take dried food with you too much and you go away abit. for the odd trip that is fine, but dried food is bad for you long term. Especially dried meat.
I have been camping for 20+ years and only bought a fridge this year. Guess why? The rug rats are picky eaters at the best of times and since we go away almost every month we need to keep lots of fresh vegies and yogurts etc

I try not to be hard and fast on things and stay technical less as possible.
For g's sake I use a push mower, but some things are worth it for some people at some time.

I used to go camping as a boy with a rifle, knife , box of matches and a tarp. I can not imagine the kids doing that let alone the MRs.

Thanks
Skinny

I finds these threads fun to read because they end up being a collection of different views. Which is exactly as it should be.

So I'm pro a diversity of views - its what makes the world a great place to be in. But I don't like a hint that somehow one person is better than another depending on what their view is. Thats what makes the world the worst it can be.

To answer shaggy - we take lots of stuff in our fridge. Love to pull icecream out in the middle of nowhere as way of saying you don't have to rough it when your roughing it *grin* - Equally with a cold can. Could I do with out it? Yep, just don't need to.

Have we become too attached to electrical goods? Whats "too attached"? Is it taking a fridge into the outback so you can have an ice cold can on day 10 because you can? or not being unprepared to go unless you can?

I can't see why its a problem that needs solving.

Gaz

We love to go places where we don't need to go into town to buy supplies every few days, and because we like our fruit and vegetables tasting as fresh as possible we try to keep them in the fridge. Also meat and fish don't do much for the belly if they have been left out of refrigeration for a few days. So if means camping near our vehicle or caravan with a fridge, then we are prepared to miss the places that we cannot get to.
When I was in the Army serving overseas, we had to endure ration pack food for weeks at a time, and we survived without a problem, but given the choice, I will go for the fresh food every time in preference to ration pack food.

good points but I am betting you dont take a shwbo in tow with you and if you do (and she enjoys the lifestylke as well) does she have a sister?

Are you being cagey ....by saying that beer is cold enough if one uses a "coolgardie safe" type system to get em cold are you trying to divert our minds away from the fact that a "REAL" fridge also opeartes by evaporation (albeit mechaniclly assisted) My beer certainly would'nt be cold enough if I relied on it being cooled by a coolgardie safe. and nor would the ice cream or the cray fish

I also like to do minimalist camping. Living for a week with only a backpack with whatever I deem is necessary for the trip. However when I do long or even just weekend trips in my 4wd then a fridge is great. Although I still have been known to go 4wd camping with just the same backpack.

However the big changes come when SWMBO comes along. Then the ute is loaded up with a tent, fridge, gas stove, blankets, pillows and bags of stuff that don't even get opened. However it's all worth it if she comes along.

However as someone said it's great to be able to grab an icecream when out bush.

i have a 60lt waeco and i carry all my frozen meat, ice cream and 1lt soft drink bottles of ice.

I also have a 120lt Eva cool fiberglass ice box. This is my fridge. Drinks, veges and anything else that is to be kept cold i put in the ice box. i deep freeze my bottles of ice and I make my own ice in the freezer as i go. I found it drains my batteries less if i swap the bottles of ice over each day. regardless of how much they have defrosted. colder it is, faster and more frozen it gets in the freezer.

cold water and ice. fully self sufficient on any trip. that's my belief

Hi all,
its funny but if I feel like some meat, the cuddly little bunny cops it. Straight between the eyes, from a couple of hundred meters. hehe
Cooling drink cans is easy, just a wet towel wrapped around six cans, on the roof of the fourby, in the sun. But must keep the cans from touching hot metal. 30 minutes and they are cold... not like a fridge cold but getting there. Same principle as the canvas water bag on bullbar. Works doesnt it...
Anyway, what happens to all the food (and possibly your only food) when the fridge packs up, or the water crossing goes wrong and you get water on the inside of your forby. I would be selling some Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) for good money. I know that most of the time they taste like Meals Rejected by Enemy (MREs) but hey its food aint it?
If all your food is refrigirated, then you cannot carry all that much really, what happens if your alternator fails, or the car breaks down. in a couple of days all that ice cream and cheese will quite quickly go off. But I guess the emergency service will be able to find you quicker, just follow the swarms of flies and the scent trail...haha
Ice cream I dont eat even at home, alergic to it, as well as most dairy, so its calcium tablets for me. And they dont need a fridge haha.
My girlfriend happens to be even more hike and minimalistic then me. Her father is a ranger and she grew up somewhere near taggerty i think in Vic mountains. She is self sufficient, and prefers hunting the bunnies with archery equipment. I like to pick them off with rifle. Either way, we exchange the hunter gatherer positions every day or two. She does not have a sister :-( haha
But we are only mid to late twenties old, so things may change with regard to comfort. We have a 12 v fridge, a 240 v bar fridge that runs of generator, and fiberglass ice box, and guess which travels the most? the ice box, never breaks down, can even leave it in the back of parked 4by for days on end and does not get stolen. try that with engel, and see a disappearing trick that david copperfield would be proud of.
Trangia for cooking, and maybe a mini lantern for night time (only when it gets dark at 5 o clock in winter).
As for icebox, I work in the chemical industry, and have numerous freezers that go to -80 deg C, so when I make ice there, its even colder then dry ice (CO2) which is -71. This lasts for a couple of weeks in vic if need be, as long as its not left in car in summer. The ice you buy from road houses, 7 elevens etc would be lucky to be at -10 deg C, as it costs money to cool to lower temp then necessary. After all ice is ice whether at 0 deg C or - 80 deg C, its just that it takes a lot more heat to warm the -80 deg C ice then it does to warm -10 ice to melting temp 0 deg C.
I go out to get away from telly, news and all the violence of society, so forget the tv, dvd, and all that rubbish. Its amazing how much there is to do in the outdoors, if you know where to look.
Just another point about this luxury camping. Where do all the SWMBOs go for a bog if there aint a bog nearby. Do they dig a hole like hikers do, or do the husbands carry a fully plumbed toilet with a shower and anti fog mirror in the back of the fourby. And after filling up the 4by with electric whitegoods, do the kids get strapped to the roofracks?? hehe

Cheers

Well spoken Shaggy well spoken

Ha ha ha ha, yeah right... It's currently 37 degrees c outside, and if my family were away seeing the sights there is nothing more enjoyable I could think of than finishing setting up camp then frigging around with a couple of heshin bags to drop the tempeture of my beer from 50degrees (in the back of the car) to a nice fresh luke warm tepeture after a few hours of patient waiting.
Just think, when we stop to explore a bushwalk there would be nothing more enjoyable than comming back to a melting hot car and enjoying a hot can of coke.
And why would we want to cook a roast in the camp oven when we can crack open a can of baked beans, stuff the snaggas and lovley chit chat around the bbq, we can slice open a pack of two minute noddles instead, hey if we put the water in before we set out for the day, they'll probally be cooked by the time we stop for lunch!
What ever happend to exploring this lovley country by cammel back, oh yeah that's right someone invented the 4wd and priced it so it could be enjoyed by all, just like the 12v fridge. :-P

In the end its all about degrees isnt it..........How many degrees away from absolute basic........and thats an individual thing.

Really though, Shaggy, Im dissapointed mate........I will take you away with me one day and teach you how to live without all the luxuries you have.

We walk for starters........

No firearms.........You find a stick when the time is needed and you make a spear or alternately a boomerang..........each to there own.

You wanna kip........lie on the ground.

You want fire...........start rubbin.

You want water..........walk downhill.

Cost???..........Nothin.

Like I said..........its all about degrees.

100 years ago........people would have laughed at you for havin so much stuff.

In 100 years people will marvel at us for somehow surviving with just a fridge and a dvd player.

I used to get dropped off in the bush with a mate for a week at a time before I had a license, with a cheap 3 man tent, sleeping bag that was warm as a paper bag, a few cans of food, and the luxury item, one of the blue foam sleeping mats.

As I got a bit older the equipment improved but I still didn’t think you were "camping" if you had any extras, and I laughed at my mate when he'd set up his tarp and go and have a hot shower. Then one camping trip with me and the missus I brought a shower along...and thought what the hell have I been holding off for?! It was brilliant! Since then we have added quite a few luxury items...fridge etc and really enjoy them. I am not to the extent of some people, but that's personal choice, something this forum actually taught me...”my way” is just that; it isn’t better or worse than anyone else’s.
The same mate I used to laugh at now laughs at me for using one of those fold up seats for the dunny, rather than the old balancing act. To me it’s the ultimate in luxury, and as my son puts it “better than squatting like some animal”.

So good on you for doing it how you do it….but talk to us again in another 20 years when you realise your body wasn’t actually indestructible like you thought all those years ago, and it aches and it creaks, and it can tell you when it’s going to rain. The kids have been fighting with each other because one looked out the other one’s window during the drive, or they’re tripping over tent ropes, or just plain driving you nuts. The missus is mad at you because you only have a couple of weeks, and don’t really want to stop for a toilet break, because you are making good time on the trip you have planned for months and months….then tell me how much you want to set up camp and collapse into a chair and take your lukewarm, sun cooled beer out of the wet towel and enjoy it….not bloody likely.

Shaggy,

Each to their own is the philosophy we should all adopt.

I am like the majority on this site in that I like my luxuries but that's my choice and while I am happy to share with anyone what I have in my setup, I never tell people what they should have or how they should do it.

I just think it is great that each of us in our own way loves to get out and see the country.

As far as shooting rabbits or using bows and arrows for a feed, well I will pass on that and I would hope you were camping a fair way away from me when you did that.

Cheers

Getting back to the original question of the purpose of a fridge.

It's to keep all the things you like cold at home, cold in the bush.

For that reason I've just upgraded from a 39L to an 80L. Now the extra luxuries can be included, eg some dip, a block of cheese, sundried tomatoes, a leg of lamb, tomatoes and lettuce stored in the "dairy" section which used to freeze because I like my beer extra cold etc. Even ice cream if that's your fancy (couldn't care if I never ate it again) by implementing the freezer.

Just the way I like to live, neither right nor wrong. Same reason I carry a portable dunny in the camper (comfortable Q/S bed, kitchen etc). And most importantly it means the GLW is now happy to go bush with me and for that reason it is all worth it.

Cheers,

Jim.

Shaggy

I reckon I could make a Coolgardie Safe, but I'm buggered if I know where I can buy button up boots or pearl shell buttons, any help in this regard would be most appreciated.

Cheers cob

I grew up on a Sheep Station in the North of South Australia.

32 Volt power ( sometimes )
Kero Fridges. ( smelly bloody things )
Meat Safe ( I used to kill a ration sheep a week )
Cellar.( couldn't even grow good dope in it!!)

When I die, I want to be buried with my Waeco!

I like my toys, done it hard, now I'm doin' it easy.

Cheers

Chuck us a coldie.... Wolfie

Hi Shaggy,

You are obviously not into eating a balanced diet, or do you carry vitamins with you to prevent the scurvey, ricketts etc from the diet you advocate? We carry a small fridge which holds the meat (all cryovaced in case the fridge breaks down) and the vegetables and fruit, as well as dairy products like milk and cheese. Nothing fancy, just enough to make sure we are properly nourished. Personally I'm not into killing things, so I have to let the butcher do it for me.

Hope not to have to look after you in hospital with malnutrition
Anni

Why have a fridge ?????????to keep things IE BEER cold ,,end of story.

Good on you shaggy. There seems to be a lot of relatively young couch potatoes
amongst you who should perhaps stay at home & watch Russell Coight and save your money. No wonder they are building wider 4wds.
At 69 I endeavour not to miss a daily walk on trips to give the body a reasonable workout and dont shy away at some hills. I had lots of illness when young and dont want any self inflicted wounds as I get older so I always look for a challenge
within my capabilities .
As a result my weight is the same as it was at 18 years , if you dont use it U lose it, and suffer accordingly. I dont take ANY medicinals on a trip or at home & hope it stays that way.
Rather apalled at the state of health of many overweight travellers who just sit after they stop . Driving day in day out results in arriving home feeling tired & unfit
for mush at all.

Aren't we all missing the point?

except for those purists who walk with the bare minimum and/or live off the land, most are already carrying huge amounts of technology with them already.
I mean the bloody vehicle; which burns fuel, has batteries, wears out rubber, churns the dirt, etc etc.
Don't kid me you're getting away from it all, unless you ditch your fourby
and go waltzing Mathilda.
In the meantime, why not add those little extras.
Who is to say where you draw the line when you're already adding to the environmental issues just by being there with your transport.
Just a thought.
Glasshopper speaks.

Shaggy, you must drop up and visit us here in Birdsville sometime....I'd love to watch you go through your paces out in the Simpson, especially in the next few months....seriously.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and their own way of life for that matter!!

( Personally, a beer outta my Trailblaza at 1 degrees C will suit me more than one outta the coolgardie!!!!! :-))

Shaggy,

I humbly suggest this is simply an exercise in trolling . . . . . but if not, perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word "ludite" in the dictionary - you may even see a photograph of yourself!

Brought myself a brand spanking new 40L Engel today....why.....because I can... and I've had enough of pissin around with ice

I am sad that such rudeness is displayed on this forum. We are all entitled to our opinions, but suggestions of everyones elses obesity, stupidity and laziness seems unnecessary.