fridges

Caravan fridge (120 Litres) for food, Engel 40 for drinks.

Never a truer word was spoken than "you can get a lot of ice for the price of them ", all things being = though the $ you spend on ice and a decent eski soon pays for a 12v fridge freezer , remember on a trip to Moreton Island pre our 12v fridge/freezer , Dry ice +crushed ice to make Bailys eski into freezer ,$70 , ice for drink eski + food eski = 3 bags per day @ $13.50 [Moreton Island prices] = 10days cold drinks and food $200 , do that just 4/5 times and a 12v fridge /freezer becomes "cheap' .

I don't even know why we bought our first car fridge all those years ago. Maybe it was to keep the beer cold but most lioke to keep the food fresh as we were living in the tropics then

25 years on and we now have a Fridge/Freezer in the vehicle(Engel+Twozone). Beer is not taken any more. I suppose we want to carry on with the daily type of comfort living we do when going bush. The frozen stuff gets frozen solid days before and then put in the fridge which is running on freeze. The dial stays on freeze while the top part of the fridge will run cold.

When we were vanning it we still only ran the car fridge. Did not have a gas/electric fridge in the van but a 240volt one which we ran on a gennie when stopped for a longer period. But the vanning days are over now and we are trying to scale back our camping requirements as well to what we take with us.

Eskies were the go 30 years ago but they are not practical for extended and sometimes 'rough' trips these days.

You have to bite the bullet and spend the money on what you need to keep you sane whilst travelling this wide land. Not having the best, is denying yourself peace of mind.

Cheers

12 v fridge is also useful for food/ drinks when sightseeing for the day, away from your van.

Besides the camper we bought the fridge was the next best thing, wouldnt leave home with out it now. Runs 24/7. We did high country prior to xmas and used the waeco as a freezer and ran it at -16 for the 7 days. We have a 90L evakool esky which we used as a fridge with block ice which lasted us the 7 days. When funds can afford we will purchase another waeco for keeping the usual butter, drinks etc and use as a fridge so will end up with 2 in the back of the prado. As said above way up the costs of ice on a daily basis and it soon adds up. Not only that but the fridges in most vans unless running on gas or ac power I have found dont work real great on 12 volt thats just my experience where as the waeco/engel are great on 12volt. At the end of the day you want to be comfortable on a long trip and not chasing up ice to keep all the things cold. We also had quit a bit of meat, ice blocks, ice cream etc left over after the high country and when we got back home just whacked it back in the freezer again and had no wastage. Just some of the things I have found over a period of time. Regards steve M

We keep the Engel in the car, mainly for lunches and drinks while on the road without needing to go into the caravan. It is also useful when going shopping as unless it is a major shopping, we can put the chilled stuff into the car fridge until we stop for the night. We generally turn it off overnight (even though the second battery is isolated) as we can take anything that needs to stay really cold into the caravan fridge. Thank goodness we had it when we broke the caravan fridge. Also we will use it if we do overnights away from the caravan (an Engel served us well when we went camping before we had a caravan).