There are Cara-boats. You still have to park your vehicle somewhere, but the ' van turns into a Houseboat. Have to go out now, but when I get back later, will try and find the website for you.
Cheers,
xina.

dave06 wrote:

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gee!! I hope the rain stops soon for sanitys sake, MINE!!!! you idiot, the thing would sink!!! cars are for roads and boats are for water, however there are some nuts er! um! clever people out there who have aleady done this with limited success

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Rubbish!
 A car, bus, or camper max weight would be no more than 6 tonne, how many trucks, cars, buses do they put on a river ferry?
I'm talking about a  barge thingy aprox 5x10 metres drawing around 200-300 mil

 

well go get a barge and start welding, has it stopped raining yet, bloody paddles and gutters for steering, geez!!! talk about whacky races!!

dave06 wrote:

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well go get a barge and start welding, has it stopped raining yet, bloody paddles and gutters for steering, geez!!! talk about whacky races!!

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You woud be still traveling around with a horse and cart if it wasen't for thinkers like Henery Ford.

 

I think ford did  build an amphibious vehicle Dave, the yanks used it through the later part of the 2nd W.W. 
But if you don't know engugh about river boats or barges don't laugh so loud, as there are some already on the Murray in S.A. drive on drive off, I'll see if I can dig some pic's out for you, one bloke has used an old red gum hull off a ferry and has got a caravan and car on it with a few tomato and veg plants in boxes along the sides.
Maybe you havent seen as much of the country as you should mate. 

A quick google search bought up the infamous aussie Aquavan, a houseboat/caravan combo but wait there is more they are prepared to sell the patent and moulds to some sucker, I mean enterpraneur game enough to take the market on....
http://www.aquavan.com.au/

-- Edited by Basil Faulty at 11:20, 2009-03-07

nope certainly havent seen as much of the country as I would like/will be seeing, concentrated on the centre and outback areas, kimberleys and central east as well as west coast, and some of the top end so I am probably not up with all river traffic

but I have seen the barges on the murray as well as the museum photos, and all the various floatation devices, I live about 2 hours out of morgan and I am a regular visitor there and all up and down the murray, but given another two years and I will certainly see a lot more of our fantastic country

henry ford was the master behind the assembly line technique, he did not invent anything himself

the vehicle which you elude to is called the ford gpa, placed in production for the second world war, designed by henry fords team of experts, henry ford did not design this himself
it can be found here

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Jeep_Man/GPA.htm

we have relations that live in morgan, ralph and raeline bowden, ralph was a senior plant operator on the no1 pumpstation at morgan for 43 years, we also have a lot of freinds that live up and down the murray,

I cant recall a paddy hogg but that doesnt mean to say he wasnt there, our rear neighbor is a fanatic on river boats (steamers mainly) and a good freind of ours (rodney hobbs) builds scale replicas of them all, his models command very high prices and can be seen in many museums up and down the murray

we usually enjoy chasing all the river rambles that start in murray bridge and end up in morgan, where music and drinking and entertainment goes on all weekend, if you can, go and see it, fantastic, just look up "river ramble" on the net,

about 30 of us get together for those fantastic weekends, we have travelled the murray up to its source on one trip, fantastic month it was, I would like to do it again, we also followed the murray to its outflow and that trip was not so good (very dry at its outpouring)

actually thinking a bit about it now, there was a fellow who tried to entangle his vehicle with a barge type thing with paddles and all that stuff, took two days to get the car out of the water when he didnt fasten the thing to the banks well enough, that was up by waikerie somewhere

$80 for 50 mtrs jeez $1.60 a mtr,  I thought we were already paying the rent!
I often wonder what things would have been like if our blokes in New Guinea didn't stop the nips.

A while back I put in a tender to buy an ex police barge powered by 2 cats, they used it on Morten Bay to police the islands My idea was to put the small Suzuki Vitara on the front and build the remainder of the deck and wheel house into a 2 story house boat the lower story would also accommodate a 4 mt tinny on trailer . It was going present some problems in moving it by road when I wanted a change of scenery/ River / Bay / State

Long story but i missed out and now some mission has it running into the ground or should that be aground.

Will drag out the finer details, if the wife hasn't tossed it when we missed the tender .

I 've seen a lot of late model oyster barges around that would be great to convert will send a pic later of one I've taken a liking to. 4 mm alloy plate , bloody near bullet proof