Tuesday, Jan 23, 2007 at 23:40
Thanks, you have prompted me to get off my backside and transfer my scrappy notebook to the computer. On the fuel consumption figures:
Total distance travelled: 24,993 km (just over 6,500 km on dirt)
Fuel used: 5,377.3 litres
Total fuel cost: $7,541.85 (say it quickly and it doesn't hurt so bad)
Average consumption: 4.65 km/l (21.5 l/100km)
Best consumption: 5.93 km/l (16.85 l/100km)
Worst consumption: 3.29 km/l (30.38 l/100km)
Best price: 111.9 cents/litre (
Adelaide)
Worst price: 198.0 cents/litre (Drysdale Station and Hell's
Gate)
So your planning figure of 22l/100km would seem pretty close to the money. Our worst consumption quoted above was pretty much a one off and was achieved travelling between
Timber Creek and Kalkarindji on the Wickam/Gibbie track through
Gregory National Park. We didn't get above second gear for three days and a fair bit in low range as
well (God bless ARB and their wonderful lokka, it bailed us several times).
As for the KK, I have nothing but good things to say about it. Certainly there is a few little things I would change if I had designed it, but it performed faultlessly. We did a lot of research before we left and narrowed the field down to two or three models. Quite frankly, we chose the
Kimberley because one came up second hand (6 months old) for a good price and it had all the features I wanted including the same wheel/stud pattern as the cruiser (and important feature in my mind).
They are expensive, as are all the 'top of the line' campers but our final decision centred around two key requirements. Firstly it needed to take what we dished out to it without breaking down. Unless you are a lot richer than me, your trip is a very precious opportunity and one which we will not be able to repeat for a long time. I was not prepared to accept the possibility of cutting a large chunk out of our trip of a lifetime waiting for expensive repairs. We saw enough evidence of trailer carnage on some tracks to convince us that it was the right decision.
Secondly, we will go back to a cheaper camper now we have finished and we needed to get a good price on the camper. Haven't sold it yet, so will wait and see but the
Kimberley (and some other) brands perform very
well in this regard too. I had a lot of fun checking out other people's set ups as we travelled (and met some great folk too) and there is some fantastic set ups out there, the KK is certainly not the 'be all and end all', but whatever its faults, it is bloody strong,
well designed and reliable.
Whatever you choose, don't go too cheap and make sure that is engineered to perform as you expect it too, you will find that 6 months is way too short in any case, and you can ill afford time out because of crap equipment. Good luck with that decision.
As for your vehicle, naturally I am biased. Ours performed very
well and the only issues were 'routine' ones. Several other people have suggested that the cost of changing over and setting up a new vehicle will eclipse any savings in fuel, and they are spot on. If you were to ask me what is the best vehicle for your trip, I would say that it is the one you know and TRUST. There is not much more comforting than knowing what the next thing that needs replacing/fixing on your vehicle is a ahead of time and, regardless of model, this only comes when you have had it and worked on it for a while. Go with what you know and trust would be my advice and treat fuel costs as a low priority.
Anyhow, that is an essay so I will stop there. We loved our time travelling this country and were really heartened by the friendly, generous people we met. Australians in all their shades are a great race of people, they just seem to be even nicer when you are travelling.
Enjoy,
Matt.
P.S. Wanna give me $30K or so and we will join you as tour guides?
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