Oz Trip in a Kombi

I reckon it's been done lots of times....

It's been done in standard vehicles of every sorts.

Most people travelling around oz barely get off the bitumen and even whent they do never engage 4wd, or probably didn't need to.

Just make sure the Kombi is good mechanically and you carry spares and tools. Even if you can't fix it... some bush mechanic will.

I met a pommy bloke half way up the Buchanan Hwy travelling in a double decker bus. To my amazement there was a big trailer behind it with a big motor bike and a plane with swing wings on it.

He had won the pools and was travelling around Oz with a Canadian girlfriend...

Indegenous Aussies travel all over with old holdens and fords.... easy.

G'day ginski
Wife and I spent 14months traveling around oz back in 1990 in an old 72 model kombi. Great fun but we wouldn't do it again in that sort of vehicle, mainly because it was too small, cramped and underpowered. During the trip we bought a tent which was great when we needed a base camp. The Kombi was very reliable and simple to maintain which was the reason for buying it for the trip, it only let us down twice, once when the ignition switch failed at Ayers rock ( as it was called in those days ) and another time when the clutch linkage fell apart, both easily fixed on such a simple vehicle with a few bits of wire.
The Kombi had better ground clearance than a lot of modern 4wd's and if you had the correct tyre pressures it would go just about anywhere and took us to some amazing places. A good Kombi could be hard to find nowdays as they're all getting on in years but if you can live with it's limitations they're a great vehicle. We sold ours on our return for more than we originally paid for it two years previously.
Best of luck and have fun regards Jon.

Check archives: Post 27193 ...... Kombis in the Simpson.

Sure mate, heaps of people have done it in a combi.

And they annoyed the hell out of everyone else who wanted to do the speed limit as well.

Hi, ginski .................Like the other posters have said - piece of you-no-what, mate! Heaps of US have done it and had a whale of a time....

Presumably you are talking about a Kombi-type vehicle, not just specifically a Kombi ?

Before I joined the ranks of the 4WD'ers I had an '83 Nissan Urvan which did trips galore around and through and across Oz.

Based in Melbourne then {1989, for thhe record]........ heaps of trips to the snow country, [yes, in winter!] plus the normal interstate runs, many years of regular trips throughout Victoria's high country [Jamieson, Howqua, Woods Point, Snowy Mtns, Gippsland Lakes etc] then into the bigger trips to Adelaide, eventually the BIG ONE to pick up the bro and headed of to a three month round-Oz up the centre, Coober Pedy, Ayres Rock, Alice and the others, Katherine,turn right to Kakadu, back to Darwin. Then back to Katherine, turn right to all the magic North Western Australian places that we all read about.

Then down the coast, Exmouth, Karratha, Broome, Monkey Mia and a heap of other almost forgotten, Kalgoorlie, the Nullabor, Ceduna, etc ... to Adelaide and stayed for a few months.
Did all this in the Urvan, nothing really special about the vehicle, carried two mouintain bikes on the back and where we couldn't take the Urvan we loaded up the bikes and pushed further on ....!!!

Had one of those tents that were made specifically for vans but only used it twice, at Kulgera and at Ayers Rock. At Kulgera we froze our little tits off when it dropped to -3 degrees and at Ayers Rock we were over-run by a plague of 30 billion field mice .............. still finding them all the way up to Tennant Creek !!
Generally we just strung a cheap tarp from the roofrack to make a rough awning and that was our main accommodation, which meant we could set up camp reasonably easily. If we had to stay at van parks we often only had unpowered sites, as a matter of economic neccessity.

Subsequently moved from Adelaide to Cairns, hitched up my trailer-sailer yacht [a Hartley TS 16], picked up the Beagle and my soon-to-be wife and drove all the way and had a ball.

From Cairns drove all the way to Melbourne and back for my eldest daughters 21st birthday. Also made about four return trips Cairns to Weipa .... yes, really did !!
These were a grand experience, I can tell you. However, the last Weipa trip we did end up shipping the Urvan on the barge to Karumba and then drove back to Cairns ............... ended up selling the van in Cairns and bought a Hi-Lux, eventually sold the 'lux and now have my beloved Troopy.

Aaaaah, .........the stories that Nissan could tell ??????????

Anyway, all of this is to illustrate what this type of van has done
....... and from the sounds of it, I weren't alone. We didn't neccessarily stick to main roads ...... but we didn't do anything stupid, either ! We had our share of problems, just like any other vehicle on a round-Oz trip and we really did get to a lot of interesting places and I would give my eye-teeth to do it all again, [actually, I think they got shooken out somewhere along the Beagle Bay road in WA !!]

And except for the round-Oz trip, almost all the trips were with the ever-faithful and exceedingly well-travelled Beagle ..........

So, go for it ............. whatever vehicle you choose, remember that you are doing it for the enjoyment of it and don't let anything wear you down !!! Hope that this will "tip you over the edge," mate!

If you are talking of the original VW air cooled kombi, most are getting old now and it is hard to find one in good condition. Expect at least a partial restore. Most parts are still easy to get. At a guess, $5,000 to $10,000 for a kombi to go around Oz, depending on how you set it up. Know a couple that do the variety bashes.

If it is one of the newer "wasser wagens", the term used in the VW clubs for the water cooled ones, try one of the diesels, might even get an older 4wd petrol one.
Advantage of the original was the ground clearance, and the engine being over the rear drive wheels for traction.

If you are talking of a more modern van, really the same applies. Commercial vehicles with more ground clearance than a ford or commodore, more room etc.

My wife and I did spend 6 months living out of an original kombi while travelling a number of years ago (without a pop top), and we would do it again. But we know the limits, one being budget, which is not so much an issue now. So we now have a pajero and camper trailer. One of the decisions we had to make before we recently bought the camper trailer to replace the tent and roof rack we used to use.

Oldplodder - member of the VW drivers club of Qld.
3 VWs in the family, 2 air cooled.

Check put this site Site Link

if you want room, try a Coaster bus, plenty already setup for touring with the works in em.

Kombi's the olds had one, great car.. we travelled for years in that thing when i was a kid.

always wonder why the poptop was never more popular.. ours was fantastic, fitted by some dude that lived across from Sutho Hospital, think he made em.