True Off Road Caravan for family

Oops - meant to be a Retreat Daydream! not a Paramount

Hi,
If you want a true off road van you are kidding if you are considering anything less than Bushtracker, Kedron or very similar.
I will stand corrected buy anything else & you will be potentially asking for trouble, but there in mind if you take it very easilly you may get away with a lesser product.
Am I biased.... YES I own a Kedron & love it

I wanna know the true difference between an offroad caravan, and a true off road caravan...

If we are talking 20 plus foot caravan with all ammenities.. is it going to be able to go offroad...or true offroad....

Or is it that if you need a functioning toilet and shower, washing machine etc etc... how can it be deemed that you are not just offroading....but actually true offroading...

Incidently, the "tip" of Cape York, with a 20 odd foot caravan, offroad or...true..offroad, is just a drive up yonder on a formed dirt road...it isn't going be dragged and dredged along the Old Telegraph track by any successful means.

Thanks for your responses. I guess as we are fairly new to the Caravan world it seems a lot of adverts say "off road van" yet upon investigation such as this site and other forums they are not "true" off road in the sense that they wouldn't go where 4x4 would go. To be clearer we are looking for a van with bunks, queen bed, shower & toilet that will allow us to travel Australia including driving to the tip of Cape York which from what i've read is the benchmark or real test of an off road van. We're not looking to do any serious crazy 4 wheel driving but would like to be able to take the van to Cape York and any other place that takes our fancy. So any advice as to the ones we should be looking at or avoiding would be helpful. Thanks

Hi Gypsy

Off road is a term different manufacturers use very differently and can mean anything from a caravan which can be taken off the bitumen for a few kilometres or so to a camp site or waterfall, and to take on corrugated, rough or stony roads voids warranty (read the fine print), through to one which is built to take on the long and corrugated inland and outback roads. None of them really mean making your own tracks across the Great Sandy Desert, however literally going off road is far less damaging than hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of corrugations.

See Choosing an off road caravan

As said above, and adding a few more possibilities, the main ones considered true off roaders (read as true rough roaders) are Bushtracker, Kedron, Phoenix, Sunland, Spinifex, DRV (Caboulture Caravans), and perhaps Trakmaster. This class of heavy duty caravan are weighty and a suitable tow vehicle needs to be considered. Due care still needs to be taken on corrugated or rough roads.

Motherhen

Our caravan is an "off-road" van, but in reality we'll happily take it on a dirt track in good condition -- we baby it because we love it and aren't prepared to take risks. This is our home, and I'm not going to chance it. We do have tents and sleeping bags for going to those places that the caravan can't get.

For what it's worth, our caravan is a 22' van with two sets of bunks (for 4 children), and a combined shower and toilet. It's been home for 18 months as we travel, and it's definately got all the amenities we need.

Hope this helps.

If you are not going long term, what about a Kimberley Karavan, they have an attachable tent style bedroom, toilet, shower,self sufficient,leave no trace and are a true Off road van, same wheel track as car and only 5.5m tow hitch to rear of van,many do the OLT,GRR to Mitshel Plateau, Frazer Island ,ect



Cheers Ken

Good morning Going Gypsy,

You might be new to off road caravaning but everyone was at some time. It is part of the fun of it is learning as you go but research is great at making this learning experience less expensive.

http://www.caravanlinks.com/caravan_manufacturers/australia.shtml

This link above will list the main manufacturers in Australia

In off road caravans the pecking order is as follows:
Bushtracker Level 1
Kedron , Spinifex, Free spirit Level 2
Phoniex, trackmaster, Supreme territory, Coromal magnum, Blue Healer, Patriot, Longreach,

Then there are many other that make mostly road vans but some off road vans.

Level one and two you can really take almost anywhere (not Creb track, Telegraph track or CSR). They will handle hundreds of miles of corrigations without falling apart.

Most are retired people however and with chilldren and bunks it becomes a big van with washing machine and shower as well. Weight becomes and issue in particular water if out in the boonies. You are looking at in excess of 3 ton for the top four and most likely close to 3.5 ton. This means a big tow vehcle as well. 100TD chipped /200 landcruiser or F250/chev. Towing a van they will drink around $300 a day in fuel as well. Most about 3.7 to 4.5 kilometers a litre towing on gravel roads.

The caravan length will creap up as well. You would be looking at about 22 ft for shower combined toilet, bunks and washing machine. This produces a big tail wag on side tracks and makes it easy to wack the back of the van on trees. This in turn limits roads.

Greta idea is get some Kedron DVD's and look at their trips. Will show Crebb track, Cape York and the outback.

Good luck with it however and you family will have the time of their lives.

Motherhen raises a good point. There are the heavy-duty vans (Bushtracker etc) that will withstand the constant corrugations of the Tanami or Developmental Rd on the Cape and then there are what I think of as smaller/lighter agile/nimble off-roaders that will not stand up to that but will comfortably cross rivers and literally go off road at a slow pace with care and better economy. As we still have kids at school we don't have the time that it takes to go from SE Australia up the Tanami etc for a few years yet, but like to go to the High Country, for instance and although the lighter weight vans like the Coromal "off-roader" is not as capable as a good camper trailerat the other end of the scale, it has the conveniences that they don't have whilst still being nimble enough to suit most of our needs. We all have different preferences/requirements. The time will come when we have the time to go heavy duty and we're keeping an eye on some of the hybrids like Eclipse/Quantum/Odyssey but the prices that they charge for these things are a bit rich for what they are. $70/80 grand is a bit of rip off to my mind. Vans in Australia are a helluva price even at the "conventional" level. When you look at the cost of vans in Europe and compare them to a basic Coromal or Jayco they're just over half the price. I suppose we have a healthy demand for them here and we know what that means.

We never had big $$$ to spend on our van, (or tug) so had our 17ft Evernew built to suit us in 2002 for $35k. ATM is 22000kgs. We bought our van (and tug) to suit 90% of our travels, which is formed gravel, dirt or bitumen roads, with much less than 10% of our km's done on 2 wheel tracks. We have taken this van along many outback dirt roads including the GGR, Plenty & Great Central, Birdsville, Tanami, etc roads, been to Cape York, Mt Dare, Kulumbaru, and many many more places in the outback.

It's done 140k km's now had the suspension rebuilt around 95k km's. (bushes/shockers) No other problems so far, although it does show sing of the tough life its had. Our van has coil/shocker suspension and we keep our speed down to suit the conditions. In general the larger a van is the more restrictive it becomes. A good size for 'off road' is 15ft, but too small for suit many people. If you want shower/toilet ensuite 19ft is about the min you can fit it in. Once you get over around 19ft you wont get a lot of choice in sites in many van parks.