Van or Campervan

G,day,
My wife and I did a similar trip last year and had a ball. If you are staying on the highways through to Darwin you will not have any problems.
On our trip we followed to Oodnadatta track and into Dalhousie springs.I would not recommend any of these roads with a pop up .
We travelled from the N.T to Derby via the Gibb River road and a pop up will not handle this road either.If you stick to the sealed and travel into places like the Bungle Bungle`s in your Patrol you will be fine .
If I was to do the trip again I would definitely stick to an off road camper.

Good luck
John

The first trip my parents did around the block they had a Jayco Poptop. Although they almost stuck completely to sealed roads , immediately they got back , they bought an offroad van.

They found the offroad van gave them a lot more freedom , as the van was built to go offroad. The majority of onroad vans are simpy stapled together and just dont like corrigations of any type and that includes the one lane bitumen roads.

The downside is , you simply cant buy a "cheap" offroad van.

To that end , if you cant afford a full on offroad van , a windup will certainly last longer then a Poptop , IMO, under those occassional offroad adventures.

Alcoz, Have a look at www.kimberleykaravans.com/ I know others being towed by GQs. We have already been in the rough and dusty stuff in the Victorian HC. Not the weight of the regular offroad vans and a good deal tougher than many that are suposed to be offroad that are light. They won't have the fuel penalty of the full height vans either.

Yep,
Gotta agree with the others that an off road van is the way to go.
We have had ours for over 5 years and have traversed all those roads mentioned beforehand and never had any problems. Remembering that one just should not tow on some tracks.
EG. One is not allowed to tow an off road van into the Bungle Bungles. Plus it is unwise to tow a van to Cape york due to the fact that some side tracks (captain Billy's landing) are not suitable for vans.

After 15 years of tents and flip-top (Cub Campomatic style) campers, we decided to get a full offroad van - no flapping canvas bits and good protection from wind and rain. We needed something that wasn't too long as we do a fair bit of cross country stuff, in and out of trees & bushes plus creek crossings when we go prospecting.

We ended up with a new (demo) 11' 6" Supreme Getaway Offroad pop-top and thus far have skull dragged it through all sorts of extreme terrain without managing to break anything - and I don't spare the rod with it either!

Expensive but highly recommended.

Bilbo

Hi all
thanks for the info ,its helped to finaly made up my mind!
4x4 camper for us it'll be.
cheers!