With the date for Sircling Stralia fast approaching I have begun to modify our 4x4 (now named Aero – as in Mitsubishi Paj(A)ero) for the trip and watching a mini pimp my ride marathon on MTV at the weekend has certainly given me a few good ideas!
We started off with a standard 4x4 seven seater wagon which did not quite go fully flat in the back meaning we were going to be sleeping on a bit of a slope and anyone wandering past could have seen exactly what we were up to due to the lack of window covering. Not ideal to say the least and storage was a bit of a concern as well!
The first job we undertook was curtains, to sleep in a wagon these are essential for keeping the sun out in the day, nosy parkers out at night and keeping the heat in, so our fist stop was Spotlight. We found ourselves some lovely and highly tasteful Tiger print thermal curtains on special and some curtain wire and after a few hours of solid work had them up and ready to go.
Next came the issue of power. Most of our travel gadgets (air bed pump, mini vacuum cleaner, car fridge, power inverter that lets us run the laptop etc) run off the ciggie lighter socket. This is fine when you are driving but
when you stop can be a bit of a pain. I looked in to a dual battery system but this was far beyond my mediocre mechanical skills but then discovered the wonder that is a Jumpstarter at Supercheap Auto. This self contained car battery can be used to jump start your car when you let the battery run down and can also power 12v appliances independently.
So we now have power and curtains. Next on the list was the angled sleeping and storage. We have quite a bit of gear for the trip including a pop up Gazebo that gives us a nice big 3x3m room on the back of the van when we stop but takes up a lot of space longwise even when folded down. The solution to this was to remove two side arm rest sections from the middle seats and remove the back seats completely. This means the Gazebo now easily slides down the side of the wagon and allows you to have the middle seats up or down without having to take it out all the time, result! This of course now removed the back seats meaning there was now nothing for the top half of our air mattress to rest on, not ideal.
So the next step would put my DIY skills to the test in a big way. A trip to Bunnings to grab a couple of sheets of MDF and a saw and an evening in the garage lead to the creation of a fixed platform in the rear of the wagon for the bed to rest on and gave us a great storage space underneath it. The addition of another sheet of MDF designed to slide out meant we could store stuff further back than before and still be able to reach them by pulling this sheet forward. An added bonus was the fact that this then formed a handy table at the back of the wagon that is ideal for cooking and washing up on.
We started off with a standard 4x4 seven seater wagon which did not quite go fully flat in the back meaning we were going to be sleeping on a bit of a slope and anyone wandering past could have seen exactly what we were up to due to the lack of window covering. Not ideal to say the least and storage was a bit of a concern as well!
The first job we undertook was curtains, to sleep in a wagon these are essential for keeping the sun out in the day, nosy parkers out at night and keeping the heat in, so our fist stop was Spotlight. We found ourselves some lovely and highly tasteful Tiger print thermal curtains on special and some curtain wire and after a few hours of solid work had them up and ready to go.Next came the issue of power. Most of our travel gadgets (air bed pump, mini vacuum cleaner, car fridge, power inverter that lets us run the laptop etc) run off the ciggie lighter socket. This is fine when you are driving but
when you stop can be a bit of a pain. I looked in to a dual battery system but this was far beyond my mediocre mechanical skills but then discovered the wonder that is a Jumpstarter at Supercheap Auto. This self contained car battery can be used to jump start your car when you let the battery run down and can also power 12v appliances independently.So we now have power and curtains. Next on the list was the angled sleeping and storage. We have quite a bit of gear for the trip including a pop up Gazebo that gives us a nice big 3x3m room on the back of the van when we stop but takes up a lot of space longwise even when folded down. The solution to this was to remove two side arm rest sections from the middle seats and remove the back seats completely. This means the Gazebo now easily slides down the side of the wagon and allows you to have the middle seats up or down without having to take it out all the time, result! This of course now removed the back seats meaning there was now nothing for the top half of our air mattress to rest on, not ideal.
So the next step would put my DIY skills to the test in a big way. A trip to Bunnings to grab a couple of sheets of MDF and a saw and an evening in the garage lead to the creation of a fixed platform in the rear of the wagon for the bed to rest on and gave us a great storage space underneath it. The addition of another sheet of MDF designed to slide out meant we could store stuff further back than before and still be able to reach them by pulling this sheet forward. An added bonus was the fact that this then formed a handy table at the back of the wagon that is ideal for cooking and washing up on. Big W then provided some nifty storage boxes that slot in to place on the lower shelf to hold our food and cooking gear, Howard’s Storage World gave us an in car bin and some handy car storage bits and after a reasonably low cash outlay we have turned a simple 4x4 into a place that we can call home. Other add-ons include:
-20L Water Jerry Can With Pump Tap
-Washing Up Bowl
-Folding Camp Table and 4 Stools
-2 Camping Chairs
-Fuel Jerry Can
-12v Powered Air Bed Pump
-USB doobery to turn my laptop in to a TV
-Etc, etc, etc.
Now with less than 2 weeks to go all we really need to worry about is getting our stuff packed, moving out of our flat and waiting for the few mail order items we ordered to arrive, there is nothing in the world that comes close to the freedom of travelling and I for one can not wait to have the feeling again!
Pictures of the finished product are coming soon!
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