Times have changed, and so have the roads. The photos were taken off of slides. (I've doubled up on this photo though). After I put this up I read "As time goes bye" under Show Me Your Rig" which made an interesting read. Kombi Campers seemed a popular rig.
-- Edited by Gaylehere on Sunday 29th of January 2023 11:17:20 PM
-- Edited by Gaylehere on Monday 30th of January 2023 12:39:34 AM
-- Edited by Gaylehere on Monday 30th of January 2023 12:42:45 AM
My husband and I travelled around Australia in 1983 on a motorbike. A couple of paniers with the absolute basics like a 1 burner stove, a pot and a billy and a plate/bowl/mug each, a 3 man tent and sleeping bags on the back. Our 'mobile phone' was a bag of coins and once every couple of weeks if we found a telephone box we would make a quick phone call to one set of parents who would then let everyone else know where we were. None of this fancy luxury of your Kombi Van ;) Now I can't imagine not having a van with an ensuite, definitely got older and softer.
-- Edited by Meredith on Monday 30th of January 2023 02:14:45 AM
86GTS, that's the style of camper we went away in when I was a little kid. My auntie and uncle and 4 of us kids. I think my brother had a separate tent, he was older and bigger. It was canvas though, not that polyester or whatever in the photo. All the cooking equipment was outside.
Those 80s bull bars were monsters, they are very similar to the stick rake on the dozer I used to clear land with.
Our Subaru 4x4 wagon had a bull bar much like this one on a current model Subaru wagon.
It was well worth the money.
We were traveling slowly along the road from Jindabyne NSW to Buchan VIC towing our Bushwacker. It follows the Snowy River.
The road is sandy gravel, hard to get traction on & it has huge drops over the side with no guard rail.
At Black mountain near Suggan Buggan we almost skidded over a 1,000ft drop. Our brakes locked up.
We saw fresh air for a moment but luckily the camber on the road made us skid across onto the opposite side of the road & we slammed into a vertical embankment.
Between 1983 to 1985, we went around in an 8'x 8'Coleman Canvas tent, a Sigma Galant sedan and a 1 ton 6x4 trailer. Filmed it on a few thousand slides, loved the whole roughness of it, which is why, we have gone back to a campertrailer today. Recently my wife found a pretty good in nick cond. slide projector so we can have slide nights again going down memory lane.
1975 Mitsubishi L300 4WD - Was absolutely fabulous + tent + pump up beds = cast iron cookware = enameled plates and cups.
That combination did 230,000 klms, it would run all day through the desert country, sand roads, gravel roads and mud roads. Comfortable travelling - Emu ran into the side of it in 1977, it was repaired but never the same, so traded it in on a Pajero Hi-Top.
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Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
A white 3 on the tree HQ Holden complete with roof rack & a very stylish French Andre Gervais (spelling?) tent. It had a quick assembly metal tube frame, the tent room hung off the frame and was complete with a stitched floor that kept the creepy crawlies out. With all the add ons we took I am sure we were overloaded. Great memories of that setup but our motorhome suits our needs perfectly now.
A white 3 on the tree HQ Holden complete with roof rack & a very stylish French Andre Gervais (spelling?) tent. It had a quick assembly metal tube frame, the tent room hung off the frame and was complete with a stitched floor that kept the creepy crawlies out. With all the add ons we took I am sure we were overloaded. Great memories of that setup but our motorhome suits our needs perfectly now.
Long before we bought our first modest camper trailer we wanted one of those French tents but couldn't afford to buy one. They were ''the bees knees'' at the time.
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There might be no Wi-Fi connection in the forest but I promise that you'll find a better connection.
1967 - Trip Ballarat Vic. to Condamine Qld. and return.......2 people, car and 2 Sleeping Bags - not "overloaded"! (here beside the lake in Parkes NSW)
That reminds me back in 1974 when a mate and I after finishing at 10.30pm at the local pub on a friday night. Decided to go on a road trip starting at Sydney, then down to Adelaide, up through Broken Hill to the QLD border and back to Sydney all in a long weekend in a Datsun 1000 ute. with 2 x 20ltr drums of fuel in the back cnr of the rear tray. Sleeping was done sitting up in the front with a pillow against the window. There was a lot of flooding at the time and plenty of muddy roads which made it very interesting. Done some crazy things. silly really.
-- Edited by Bulldozer on Sunday 5th of February 2023 03:26:40 PM
Circa 1970 solo half lap of oz in EH panel van fitted with 27 gallon fuel tank. Mattress and sleeping bag in back. Kitchen in front passenger seat. The p'van is pictured inside one of the trees in the Valley of the Giants south of Perth WA.
1986 4 kids 2 adults across the Nullabor to Perth and back in Holden Kingswood;( no aircon) with 3 two man tents 6 sleeping bags and an esky bathers and a few clothes in the middle of summer. We had cerials for breakfast sandwiches for lunch and takeaway for tea as we didn't own any proper camping gear (in hindsight was way underprepared). We managed to squeeze in 2 locals and a tyre who had a flat on the Nullabor and took then to the servo. Later on, on another hot road we broke down with a slipping fan belt (I should add we had water a sheet to sprinkle it on to keep us cool) flagged down a car gave them my RAA number and they phoned the road crew from the next town.
Not my fondest memory of a trip but it does remind me to be grateful for my basic set up now as compared to then it's flash.
I use my tent every now and then, not so much bike riding much anymore, but out in the car, with either a 2 man hiking tent, or a 4 man tent, with just my dog and I. The wife does not want to sleep on the ground anymore, otherwise we would be both doing it. But I personally could go back to the tent so easily, just to avoid towing ever again.
The wife does not want to sleep on the ground anymore,
I started with a tent before getting a caravan. I didn't sleep on the ground, I had a camp bed with a self-inflating mattress on it. It was quite comfortable.
Late 60s and early 70s, a 16' Viscount van towed by an EH wagon, and later a HT wagon, staying at the same places year after year - Shepparton for Easter and Leopold for Christmas. And, we weren't the only ones following such a routine. We met up with the same families - our 'holiday friends' - every time.
These family holidays ended in the mid 70s when my brother and I hit our mid teens and started doing on own thing.
Then, in 1990, after spending 2 years working in PNG and with ample cash reserves, my ex wife and I took a year off work, bought a (secondhand) Landcruiser and 27' Viscount van and circumnavigated Australia.
Worst place we stayed at was Fitzroy Crossing. We liked Jabiru but the mosquitoes were so bad that we had to cut our stay short. My ex wife sustained hundreds of bites - no exaggeration. And, talking about the NT, we felt that Kakadu is over-rated and LitchfieldPark is much better.
We liked both Broome and Cairns so much that we stayed for 1 month at each (1990).
Meredith, did you guys stay, in Bundaberg in 83', in the Caravan park, under the main bridge, next to the boat builders by chance, between March and easter. If so, we met a couple on a motorbike, I think it was a 500 - 550 cc Honda and they both had Shoei helmets. And the bike was blue, or blue stripes.
-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Tuesday 7th of February 2023 02:57:29 PM
Actually I remember the girls name now Meredith, it was Peta, but she pronounced it Peter. Weird I can remember all that from back then, but I can't remember my first born childs (dec) face, that's gone. ( we lost her pictures during a house fire, some years later).
I started to learn how to camp in 1954,with a school mate and his father,up in Deniliquin on a farmers property .
Got married in 1960 and took the family up in 1963 with a Hillman and tent, up grader to a Ford Fairlane in1968.
We still go now an then,and nothing much has changed .started with a 12 x 12 tent with a 6x12 annex. put flywire all around so we could roll up the sides. some old photos dragging dams for bait and food. and the local children bring their horses down for the young ones to ride.
How I travelled in the 1980s, I even had the skills back then to get other half in the morning to have breakfast out of an empty Tooheys can on the back seat (I better leave it at that).
KEF hi-fi & first car CD player in Australia, air shocks, built in fridge & velvet ceiling with foot marks may have more to do with it than I can remember!
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50L custom fuel rack 6x20W 100/20mppt 4x26Ah gel 28L super insulated fridge TPMS 3 ARB compressors heatsink fan cooled 4L tank aftercooler Air/water OCD cleaning 4 stage car acoustic insulation.
