About Us

Hi, this is a little a bit about me and my wife and our gear setup.
I'm Ray aka (Walrus), and my wife Charmaine aka (Blade)
and no we will not go into her aka lol.
Charmaine and I have been together for over 30yrs and live in Brisbane, Queensland and over this time we grew from being day campers in the back of the panel van (yes panel van) haven't heard of one of those for awhile :) in our younger years to hiring cabins progressing to tents, campers (as we had children to share our adventures) etc, to now our new Jayco Outback Journey.

So now that all our kids have grown up we have decided to turn our weekends and holidays into an experience to visit parts of Queensland and NSW, and as we retire to expand further out into this lovely country of ours.

We have met and still keep in contact with a few good friends that are all ready retired and travelling, and seeing how relaxed and happy they are only makes it more exciting. So this blog will be about places we go and see so our family and friends can keep in touch.

This next piece will tell/show how we set up our 4WD/Caravan as we have recently sold our older 4WD and camper and upgraded.

4WD:

2014 Nissan Navara D40, 2.5L diesel, 140kW, 450Nm, 5 speed auto with manual mode, with 3 tonne towing capacity.

This Navara is fitted with a great dash setup and extra features:

* Full sat nav,
* Integrated blue tooth for your phone with full controls on your steering, all phone contacts downloadable to your 4wd for complete hands free.
* Bose Stereo System, which allows you to download your CD's/MP3's straight to its built-in Hard drive
- which i have also connected an extra Samsung phone which I souly use as an MP3 player using WiFi to connect to my Spotify account for all the music i want.
* Full climate control and reverse camera.
* I have fitted an extra 2 channel reverse camera system separate from the Nissan's factory one. This allows me to check the tow hitch without being in reverse while traveling and the other fitted to the rear of the caravan for reversing and checking rear traffic.
* Uniden 80 channel UHF with high and low gain antennas. (using a 1000 watt antenna switch box).
* A Phone cradle - signal booster/charger and antenna (for those weak signal areas).
* iPad/laptop cradle.(for the wife) * Uniden Safety cam.
* ARB Sahara Bar -fitted with a Warn XD9000 winch.
* 2 high beam 240 BLITZ light force spoties. (for those long dark straight roads).

* 24" combo spot/spread light bar. (for those tight dirt & sand tracks).
* 2 led reverse/work spot lights.
* Thule roof racks fitted with Thule Hullavator 897XT for the kayaks.
* A hand made switch control box to support all the extras.
* Dual battery Narva system with jumper option.
* Redarc electic brakes.* ARB Canopy, with draw system (built by me) to fit all those extras (fridge, tools, fishing gear, recovery gear).
* Fulcrum Suspension 2" kit with 350kg back springs.
             (Pic shown without suspension lift)
* and yes a Hayman Reese hitch to tow my caravan......

Caravan:

Our home away from home is a 2014 Jayco Journey Outback 16.52-3 DB.

We decided on the 16.52-3 DB based on its size and the fact that we would be going off road and mobility in tight areas.

Some of this Pop Top features are: (There are many more features in the Pop Top to check them all out got to).

Camper Spec sheet here

But i will list some.....

The people at Camperland Wynnum Qld are awesome, the salesman Paul has sold us our last few upgrades over the years and has helped our friends out in choosing what is right for them.... Thumbs up.

* Battery - Setec 12V/240V Management System.

* Battery - 100amp Deep cycle. extra deep cycle battery (probably not needed).

* Control panel - Drifter Led display, to monitor your battery, water and solar panel.

* Solar System - 120 watt & regulator.

* Suspension - JTeCH Suspension independent Coil

* Electric brakes.

* We got fitted to this unit 3 water tanks 2 x 82 lt and 1 x 50 lt to help us through out of the way places, total water capcity 210 lt. (mainly for the wife to do her hair).

* We got an external shower fitted & hot water unit.

(with this we got a canvas company to make us a custom toilet shower area that attaches to the van where the shower is.)

* The Awning - rollout with Led Strip Light is awesome.

* The TV with integrated stereo system is next to none, and has a wind up ariel .

* We have done a little mod to this pop top and removed the spare tyre from the back and mounted it on the draw bar. Giving us room to mount what i call my man box away from home a unique aluminum box on a swing arm which when unhitched  swings around to the awning area ...... when opened to find a full Coleman BBQ setup all ready to use. (picture to follow).
* We  got the external gas fitting mounted to suit the BBQ setup.

* We didn't go a full annex and opted to buy wind/shades sails for the awning , top wind skirts for the awning bottom wind skirt and full off side shade sail.

This Jayco has  many more features like i said so you can always pop onto the Camperland Wynnum web site and look at the full range these guys have to offer. All in all this should do what we need it to do and probably more and as always you will find something better when camped up with others or extras that you might need....starting to sound like keeping up the house reno's - not, a bit of fishing and a beer sounds like the go :) so that's it with what we have chosen for our adventures, will add any changers as we go and add pic's so you get the idea, now time to pack and leave on our first ADVENTURE.