Hi, new to the site although I have been following for some time as a visitor and have now joined as it seems you are great bunch of people who are willing to help & support like minded people.

My wife and I had a small Winnebago Motor home on a ford econovan chasis for a couple of years, then progressed to a Venture Van 5th Wheeler which we bought when it was a year old in early 2003 and kept for 10 years. We then sold that a few years ago and bought a 2006 26ft Rockwood 5th wheeler and a Mazda BT50 tug which is what the previous owner used. We travelled from Adelaide to Lakes Entrance, then up the Alpine Way to Hotham, then back to Adelaide which the BT did extremely well. However after seeing some of the weight issues brought up on this site I put the set up over the weigh bridge & found with water tanks & gas bottles full it only left me about 20 Kilo's for alcohol, food, & clothes. My BT 50 had a steel bull bar which is very heavy in itself, but I reckon the mounting plates alone are another 20 to 30 Kilo's, which the previous owner of the 5th wheeler didn't have. The expensive moral of the story is don't believe the sales blurb that your vehicle can tow 3.5 ton, yes it can if you don't add any accesories such as bull bar, canopy, drawers, fridge, long range fuel tank, spare battery, generator etc. I didn't have any of these except for the bull bar and I went over the 5.9 ton combined gross mass limit. We now have an Iveco dual cab which allows plenty of lee way weight wise which is handy because the wife likes to take everything.

The wife hates leaving the grandkids so only likes going away for a couple of weeks at a time although we have just come back from a 6 week trip to Perth & southern WA which was very enjoyable.

Thay's it for now, hope to catch up on the road sometime.

Cheers

Ian