Kimberley Karavan

Thanks Jim
I wish it was only $65000 . For what my girl is looking at $65k seems cheap!!!!!!!!!!!!
We want to travel indefinitely and go wherever. No plans , just up and go where the wind blows. We have done one trip around and several excursions to the high country in vic.,Flinders Ranges , Googs track but now want to travel more extensively. The western deserts and all through the centre and anywhere else that is out of the way. Our youngest is now 18 and can look after himself.....allbeit with us as a backstop.
I'm happy to spend my hard earned if it the way to go.....hence the call to other Karavan owners.
Regards

Rossco

R,

If it suits you and your dream, live it. As I said, it has a following, it can't be a bad thing.

Enjoy your journey, it sounds wonderful.

Jim.

Better still, if you are going to take a tent for the rough stuff, is buy a black top van with all the bells and whistles and you have the best of both worlds.

Thats what I am doing...no way I would dream of towing anything off road. Hard enough just getting the fourbie through some of that stuff.

MH, I did get an email from one of our members who had the pleasure of meeting with you and Jim. Mutha, the more room you have for junk, the more junk you take. It was always the case when you can trail anything. We have friends on and off EO that are currently travelling with a lot less room than a KK ;-))

Don, we had little trouble with the SD last year, doing from Poeppels Corner to Birdsville, apart from a drawbar extension that hadn't had two bolts in to triangulate, but that was caused by a cracked Polyair tube. We have a rooftop tent though for extended desert travel.

Hi John R

I just have a feeling that Mrs Rossco will want to take a bit more for a long term trip. This from us who filled the tray of the F250 and didn't have room for everything. I know some people manage to travel very light - with their only home being a tiny rig.

I agree that people who come to grief with off roaders on the Tanami and similar roads are travelling on tyres too high, and/or too fast for the rig and conditions.

Cheers

Mh

Hi Don

The trouble with that theory is in Australia, you have to go back a couple of thousand kms or so for the caravan. Sure, don't expect to take any sort of caravan where it is hard enough to get the 4wd, but for touring, so much of Australia is dirt roads, and often pretty rough going. No way would i consider using an on-bitumen only caravan for touring. It is also an extremely expensive excercise to get recovered from the outback if the van proves not up to the job.

Mh

Don M,

"Thats what I am doing...no way I would dream of towing anything off road. Hard enough just getting the fourbie through some of that stuff."

Don you've got about the best 4wd tow vehicle available at the moment, don't be afraid to drag a van through the outback behind it.

Here's a picture with less power than you've got hauling my previous van up a sandy track.

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It was steeper than it looks.

cheers

I agree with the tandem set up. Its works a treat on rough tracks and load sharing. Heaps of storage space inc 250ltr of fresh water.

Draw bar weight about about 90kg.

Does it have a toilet and shower? The ones I saw at the Melbourne show didn't.

Rick

The Stargazer looks like a very good unit, well built and well priced at $45k at the Penrith Show. That price included everything including the fridge. The only thing I didn't like was access to the forward bed and having to set up the shower unit but it looked like it wouldn't take too long.
Plenty of room for 4 people and good storage space.
Let us know how you find it and good luck in your travels.

John

Yes, they are great. Miss a guide post with you car and your Karavan will too. That means narrow tracks are fine, off road through the scrub. I know others who have used them long term too, like a year at a time, no trouble.

Interesting Scott, there are quite a few ex-Ultimate owners amongst the KKOG membership. Too much canvas and setting up. Quicker with the Karavan, no bed to make up, room in the kitchen. One lady last year with an Ultimate, told me that there was anyone else there, you asked them to leave. Where would you put the flushing toilet and shower in the Ultimate.

They say the Ultimate may have suited them at the time, but time to graduate. I know one couple that had two before the change.

It's amazing John.

"Who was that Again" (above) has the same photo and name as you.

Me tink it mazing.

Russ, there are a heap of links to people driving Karavans as fast as they think they can drive their cars. It is like any other system being trailed. If you get to rough roads, you should drop tyre pressures and drop your speed. It commonly hasn't been done until they are now recommending it.

The first thing that happens is that the shockers fade, which you actually mention above, you did a shocker. If you want you can pay many hundreds extra for military spec, but the shocker seal will give way with temperatures over 200c. If you drive to the conditions and have lower pressures, they will seldom get over 80c. I use an infrared temperature probe to regularly monitor mine and they haven't been over 50 this last winter - usually 40-42c.

It is amazing that some people still like to drive with bitumen pressures over broken surfaces. I saw a post on the Landrover site that discussed breakages and the speeds of 80-90 kph at 40psi on the Tanami. Why? Because the suspension of the Landrover didn't pick up too many shocks. What a dipswitch

All manufacturers of caravans suggest you drop pressures and speeds, but I know one dealer of Kimberley Karavans had someone with mud over the top of the Karavan. Their employees found out that the owner had been hitting creeks at over 100kph. No wonder people wreck things.

I am not aware of any of the Karavans cracking a water tank and we have over 130 members of the KKOG (Kimberley Karavan Owners Group)

G'day John,

Our water tank was an early design. We know several owners who had the same problem. Kimberley Kampers were fantastic. They replaced the tank, including the labour costs, free of charge even though we were a year out of warranty. The shocky was our fault. Tyres too hard. Speed wasn't the issue.

I don't even know if the same water tank is used on the Karavan, but I do know that the replacement tank was an improved design.

The catastophic failure of the suspension on the K Karavan that I mentioned in my post (above) was where the entire trailing arm broke off, not just a shocky failing. The owner was devastated. He said he was not travelling fast (but everyone says that, don't they).

Cheers

Russ

Russ, good always to get the clarification. You don't say about the condition of the shocker on the failed arm though, which was important.

Our KK has the upgraded arms and springs. It was recognised that there was insufficient spring travel with some early ones. No room between the coil windings and the bump stop was too close, so we have different arms, springs and bump stops to original. Part of the Kimberley backup. We hadn't had failure. They have been upgrading during services usually.

They now install irreversible temperature gauges that will give a tell tale. I prefer to carry my own reference that the temps are kept low, rather than get anywhere near the offending 200ºc

On the water tanks, we have two. One stainless and one poly and I think they now have two poly or plastic. With moulded ones, the air bleed is lower than the top of the tank, so I have supplied KKOG some people with a 90º bend to make use of the top of the tank, that was otherwise just an air space. Twenty minutes of time and $0.50 of bits - stainless and glue for 40% better than standard drinking water capacity.