The Camping Thread - Page 38

slowsnake · 14-06-2021, 08:39 PM

When I was gold prospecting in Nth WA, I was looking into a little wind powered generator, they clamp to your bull bar, and they work at night, but never got around to it!

Worth looking into?

Cheers King Billy

prydey · 14-06-2021, 10:48 PM

Sorry to hear that Bent. Stay strong mate.

roKWiz · 15-06-2021, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowsnake

When I was gold prospecting in Nth WA, I was looking into a little wind powered generator, they clamp to your bull bar, and they work at night, but never got around to it!

Worth looking into?

Cheers King Billy

Hey King Billy, incorporated one onto the back of the old motorhome 33amps per hour 400W. Air 403. Worked really well both inland and by the sea. Got pics somewhere.
Used the same unit on daboat.

slowsnake · 15-06-2021, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Hey King Billy, incorporated one onto the back of the old motorhome 33amps per hour 400W. Air 403. Worked really well both inland and by the sea. Got pics somewhere.
Used the same unit on daboat.

That was my last little bit of gear I "never got"
stopped about 10 years ago, going bush that is, never travelled the coast, it was always into the scrub, just that red dirt and me, I could of survived out there forever barring medical needs!...lol...when health stopped me I just sold all me gear, even sold my Vette, tut,tut...I can hear!

Cheers King Billy

roKWiz · 15-06-2021, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowsnake

That was my last little bit of gear I "never got"
stopped about 10 years ago, going bush that is, never travelled the coast, it was always into the scrub, just that red dirt and me, I could of survived out there forever barring medical needs!...lol...when health stopped me I just sold all me gear, even sold my Vette, tut,tut...I can hear!

Cheers King Billy

Just for you King Billy Air403 windgenerator on the old motorhome.
And before anyone asks, no I didn't drive down the road with it up.

Slid down for the travelling position. One allen key to remove the blades.

slowsnake · 16-06-2021, 09:51 AM

Wow, bigger than what I envisioned, when you mentioned output I thought geez must be a big bastard, lol....
Thanks for that...

Cheers King Billy

sgt_doofey · 21-06-2021, 10:29 AM

Just booked in last night a few nights at the Big4 caravan park in Port Hughes for this weekend. Should be a bit of fun. Weather isn't looking too crash hot at the moment, but it'll be a fun experience for the kids

BENT_8 · 21-06-2021, 01:49 PM

Spent 2 nights at Karoonda this past weekend, nice little town, clean and with plenty of artistry to look at and photograph.
Caravan park is council run so no manager onsite but good amenities for $15pn.

sgt_doofey · 28-06-2021, 01:13 PM

Today is our last full day at Port Hughes. Heading home tomorrow.

Tonz · 28-06-2021, 02:01 PM

that gezebo would have been a test of good tie downs in last weeks weather.

sgt_doofey · 28-06-2021, 02:20 PM

We missed that. Only here for 3 nights, Saturday until Tuesday. Looks like we're getting good weather for it too. Nice and sunny but cool today. Cool and overcast yesterday and I think sunny again tomorrow for the pack up and drive home.

BENT_8 · 28-06-2021, 05:43 PM

A group of about 20 of us are supposed to be heading to Lake Bonney this weekend to celebrate our good mates final camping trip before we spread his ashes, not sure it'll be happening with this Covid restriction crap ramping up.

sgt_doofey · 30-06-2021, 03:27 PM

Just a quick review of the Port Hughes Caravan Park...

It's a great, family friendly place. Lots of things for the kids to do with the bouncy pillow, playground, mini-golf and bike/scooter pump track.
Amenitites were good, nice and clean with large showers.
Great camp kitchen and pool area but no shade over the pool area. Pool is solar heated but was still freezing cold in the middle of winter

Friendly staff.
Nice, large sites. We fit our 6x3m tent, 6x3m gazebo, car and trailer on the site with room to space.
They have communal fire pits, but fires are allowed on your site as long as they are contained in some sort of fire pit and is at least 200mm off the ground. I used a washine machine drum on bricks.
Sites are only dirt but do have a mat on them for your tent, caravan, etc.
Has a boardwalk down to the beach and can easily walk in to the heart of Port Hughes along the beach.

It was a good park to visit for a few days. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It must have just been very good timing on our behalf, but it was very queit there with not too many people there. Helps that we were there outside of normal school holiday dates.

blueoval · 30-06-2021, 04:15 PM

great hear Doof. What are the prices like for a camp spot?

sgt_doofey · 01-07-2021, 10:56 AM

We paid $180 for the 3 nights, but that's for a family of 4. I think it was a base rate of $34 per night, but it's saying $42 a night on their booking site for a powered site.

We stayed in the village area. They also have a foreshore area which is actually in a different spot. That looked like it had nice grassed areas in there but I only saw it driving past it.

BENT_8 · 01-07-2021, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

We paid $180 for the 3 nights, but that's for a family of 4. I think it was a base rate of $34 per night, but it's saying $42 a night on their booking site for a powered site.

We stayed in the village area. They also have a foreshore area which is actually in a different spot. That looked like it had nice grassed areas in there but I only saw it driving past it.

Holiday rates now.

prydey · 01-07-2021, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Just a quick review of the Port Hughes Caravan Park...

It's a great, family friendly place. Lots of things for the kids to do with the bouncy pillow, playground, mini-golf and bike/scooter pump track.
Amenitites were good, nice and clean with large showers.
Great camp kitchen and pool area but no shade over the pool area. Pool is solar heated but was still freezing cold in the middle of winter

Friendly staff.
Nice, large sites. We fit our 6x3m tent, 6x3m gazebo, car and trailer on the site with room to space.
They have communal fire pits, but fires are allowed on your site as long as they are contained in some sort of fire pit and is at least 200mm off the ground. I used a washine machine drum on bricks.
Sites are only dirt but do have a mat on them for your tent, caravan, etc.
Has a boardwalk down to the beach and can easily walk in to the heart of Port Hughes along the beach.

It was a good park to visit for a few days. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It must have just been very good timing on our behalf, but it was very queit there with not too many people there. Helps that we were there outside of normal school holiday dates.

Is that the big 4? I googled port Hughes caravan Park but nothing called that specifically came up.

sgt_doofey · 01-07-2021, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by prydey

Is that the big 4? I googled port Hughes caravan Park but nothing called that specifically came up.

Yeah, it's the Porth Hughes Big 4. It's called the Big 4 Breeze Holiday Park.

BENT_8 · 05-08-2021, 10:15 PM

Been a bit quiet in here so i thought i'd share some recent updates on my van.

Decided to remove the storage box the previous owner had installed, fortunately the frame work for the box had been installed on the factory bumper brackets and the factory bumper was retained, so i simply unbolted it all and refitted the bumper as original.

How it looked

The box removed

Bumper refitted, i set it back a bit to accommodate a pole carrier, much cleaner look.

With the original look restored i needed to alter the spare wheel carrier to stand the spare up against the back of the van again.

I bought one of these.

Fabricated this with a combination of new steel and sections removed from what i had

And then put it all together again

Just need to put the number plate and plate light back on and she's good to go again.
Look forward to seeing how it tows now.

slowsnake · 05-08-2021, 10:53 PM

Well that looks very professional to me, well done, I see you already have a "patent pending" eh....

Cheers Quality Control Billy.

blueoval · 06-08-2021, 11:34 AM

Need as job BENT. I wish I had the knowhow and skill to do stuff like this.

sgt_doofey · 09-08-2021, 11:55 AM

We're doing a one night trip on Saturday to The Bend. Going to take the kids karting and then stay the night in the caravan park. Should be a fun little trip!
Kids will stay in my mates camper trailer and I'm borrowing a swag to sleep in. Changing things up a little

sgt_doofey · 24-08-2021, 07:43 PM

Just a quick review on the The Bend Big 4 Caravan park...
It's a really good park with brand new facilities. The sites are pretty good, half gravel, half grass, so for us, we folded out the soft floor of the camper trailer on to the grass whilst the rest was on the gravel. The grass wasn't terribly flat so we had to pick our spots for our swags. I'd assume it would be the same in tents.

It's a park that you would really want to stay at if it was located in one of the popular holiday destinations. As it's a little way out of Tailem Bend, unless you're there to spend money at The Bend motor sport park, there is little else to see or do.

By the way, karting there was really good fun, so I highly recommend doing that!

As an aside, I also had to run my fridge today as a freezer as we were without power at home due to a dodgy RCD. I measured the power usage running as a freezer set at -18 degrees and it used 5.2Ah over about 5 hours. That didn't include the initial chilling down to -18 from 8 degrees.
Once again, a cold day here in Adelaide, so the fridge wouldn't have had to work hard at all.
I'm still quite impressed with the Kings fridge. Does all that we need it to, so far

prydey · 24-08-2021, 07:54 PM

Anyone from Adelaide (or interstate) been to Bendelby Ranges or Rawnsley Park Station?

sgt_doofey · 06-09-2021, 04:53 PM

I found this video by some young Aussie lads quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMLoji5WTk

Basically, creating a 12v system in his 4wd that has wireless on/off capability and motion detection sensor as well. I think this is something I might look to add to my camp lighting set up

roKWiz · 06-09-2021, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

I found this video by some young Aussie lads quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMLoji5WTk

Basically, creating a 12v system in his 4wd that has wireless on/off capability and motion detection sensor as well. I think this is something I might look to add to my camp lighting set up

Great set up. Like his computer. Nice when its all simple 12V, few years back, searched everywhere myself for a 12v compact printer. Ended up with a Canon i70 sorta looks like a portable flat scanner but works well.

sgt_doofey · 06-09-2021, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Like his computer.

Being an IT person myself, that really tickled my fancy. I'm thinking that a Raspberry Pi might also be on the cards at some stage in the near future

You can get reasonable sized monitors that run off of 12v these days. Some of the newer ones will have a 12v adapter that just plugs in to the back as it's power supply. I'd have to double check, but I think my wife's 27" Curved Samsung monitor is 12V.

I would have thought that there would have been a few travel printers out there in the world, not many but a few.

roKWiz · 06-09-2021, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Being an IT person myself, that really tickled my fancy. I'm thinking that a Raspberry Pi might also be on the cards at some stage in the near future

I would have thought that there would have been a few travel printers out there in the world, not many but a few.

You would be surprised that there isn't that many around especially 12v. It was mounted on little ruber blocks with Velcro so it could fold up in transit.
Pictured here with the little 12V Eeepc I had at the time.

prydey · 06-09-2021, 09:25 PM

Ahh, slim dusty. My old boy had the 'Lights on the hill' record. I think I still know every song off by heart

blueoval · 14-09-2021, 05:12 PM

Been a while since Ive been on here.

Went car camping on a private property in Pinnaroo about 3 weeks ago. Pretty sandy out there and thought it would be a great place to test out the Outbacks X mode 2. It's called Deep Snow and Mud setting. Pretty much turns off traction control and gives me more power down low to spin the wheels through deep sand. My mates with Rangers/Hiluxes etc were impressed at how well it handled everything. Had no issues and didnt even have to air down.

2021-08-29 10.11.30-1 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-41 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-22 by S B, on Flickr

pinnaroo-6 by S B, on Flickr