Monday, Sep 17, 2012 at 15:28
Hellow Steve
Yes if fair to say its pretty tight but highly effective.
Everything is brought or made to fit into the available space and the purpose built shelves etc.
While it may be low cost it does take time to make things fit and I wouldn't reccomend this approach to those who don't have time to play around.
But in the end it has proved very practical.
A cute verification of this occurred recently on the Colson track - we were ready to
camp at 4pm after a hard cross country slog but a vehicle we were travelling with needed a space to erect a tent.
We set of and incredibly we drove in excess of 100km till well into the night before a single place big enough to erect a tent was found, whereas our car could have stopped anywhere.
There are a few key points to do to ensure this setup really works -
E.G. You can get into bed via the side doors without climbing over things.
And can
cook in the back of the car whilst someone else is still reading a book etc.
We carry a bag each with clothes and this sits on the bed normally and gets put on the front seats for sleeping.
To change clothes while inside is the hardest part but you can sit fully upright without your head touching the roof etc.
I am not willing to have any compromizes like losing the ability to have 5 seats when not camping and it takes about 1/2 hour to put the original seats back in.
For emergency use only, you can sort of have seats at any time as our platform that forms the front 1/2 of the bed has a fold up plywood piece that allows it to fold up and form a quasi rear bench
seat.
I attach picture which shows the flat floor but without mattress - in it you can see our CF-25 fridge between the front seats and water is carried under the platform on either side of the fridge. (You don't even have to get out of bed to raid the fridge at night).
Purpose built shelves to the left hold chairs and to the right hold food and at the very top of the picture can can just see a little rolled up table and 2 man tent.
An internal shelf just below the roof holds a things like a cover for the rear barn doors which makes a rain proof area big enough to
cook by.
This picture shows the basic flat platform without the mattress and also shows a microwave oven where pillows might be but we normally don't take this.
2nd picture shows the fold up flap in place with a wife wanting her morning coffee from the kitchen.
To set up kitchen , I fold up the flap which folds up the bottom 1/3rd of the double bed mattress and then get stove etc from off the front
seat where it spent the night etc. We mostly drive with kitchen stuff setup as per this picture.
Flat Platform for bed
Wife in bed behind GU Patrol Kitchen
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