Four months on the road and we’re learning what’s essential and what isn’t. We took our rig over a weigh bridge in Bunbury and fully loaded it’s close to half a tonne overweight. We figure with a 5 tonne rig we can possibly get away with that. If not, we’ll have to change the vehicle I guess. Shame the Hi-lux isn’t rated higher, it’s more than capable of pulling around what we have. We don’t even know the vans behind us most of the time, and towing the fifth wheeler we sit on around 90KPH, and around 2000 revs. It’s doing 12.5 – 13 litres per hundred when towing, which most people think is pretty damned good. I think the aero dynamic shape of the Travelhome helps that a lot.

We know we have to be careful to keep the weight from increasing, or possibly even reduce a few things if we can. We had been looking at changing our air con, but that would add more weight, so we’ll try and live with what we have. A roof unit would be more efficient, but with shady sites and moving on with the seasons, we think the one we have may be just adequate.

We are constantly in ‘cull’ mode for anything that’s not performing as expected or anything that’s not getting used and not likely to be used.

This week we replaced our 5 month old barbecue with a Baby Q. The Baby Q roasts and bakes beautifully, so is more efficient that the one it’s replacing. Because it roasts so beautifully we’re going to find a new home for our heavy, but much loved cast iron camp oven. The occasional access we have to camp fires on which we can use it, doesn’t justify it’s weight when we can cook all the same things and more often on the Baby Q.

When we first moved into the caravan it felt like it was short on storage. It’s a pleasant surprise to find out that’s not the case. But we do have to be constantly vigilant. Almost weekly, we clean and tweak our belongings. This week it’s the camp oven, replaced barbecue and a surplus table. Last week it may have been a tea pot, or/and a couple of cups that we find we’re not using and not likely to use. Next week, it may be a couple of t/shirts and a few pairs of knickers. We both have more than enough clothes, so it’ll be a while before we have to replace things that are starting to wear out.

Another thing that’s pleasantly surprising about living in the caravan, is that I thought there would be lots of times when we’d feel like the other half was ‘under foot’. That rarely ever happens, in fact it makes me wonder why the hell houses are getting so big. This feels absolutely big enough for two people. It’s quick to clean, and because we don’t have spare storage space, we can’t spend money on shite that sits in a cupboard or garage, forced economy!

Rather than adjust our house to fit unfavourable climates, we can just up wheels and move to where the climate’s better. Moving into this really does get needs and wants in prospective. There’s room here for me and mine, and room for friends and family when they visit. Entertaining isn’t any harder here than it was in a house, in fact with park ablution blocks, pools, and camp kitchens, it’s easier, we have all the mod cons for our guests and don’t have to clean any of them.

At Lucky Bay we started to realise what it means to have our 2 x 150 watt solar panels, our 1500 watt inverter, Ctek battery charge and our generator. I can’t pretent to understand any of it, but after a few days at Lucky Bay without power and a bit of time to start looking at our own energy supplies, Paul started to work it out. There’s no shortage of willing and able blokes in camp grounds all willing to share their knowledge as well.

Firstly we took the fridge off gas and had it running on 240 volt from the inverter. However that was a mistake, the fridge draws to much power and ran our battery charge right down. The next day was overcast so re-charging the solar panels was slow. That’s when the generator came into it’s own, a couple hours of running that and we were fully charged once again and the fridge was back on gas.

So, we found running the big fridge isn’t possible from our own power source, but the things that are possible amazed me. I used my thermomix for making dips, we ran our TV and charged all our phones and computers, and I used my hair straighteners, all with hardly a change to the battery charge level.

As our microwave is only 850 watt we think that’ll be okay, but aren’t sure if we’ll be able to cook with the thermo mix yet. I still have to check the wattage of that before I try it, and I haven’t as yet tried the washing machine.  Those things are still be tried yet.

Currently the only things we know for sure it won’t run is the big fridge and my hair blowdryer. The fridge runs very well on gas and it takes hardly any gas, and as long I let me hair dry naturally, I can still use the straighteners to make it look passable.

This all means we can lived in a very civilised manner with only a few exceptions providing we have sun. When we don’t have sun, we can still be very civilised by using the generator.

Compared to our last caravan in which we had to boil a pot for hot water, I am amazed at how far removed from the pioneer feel this is. We really could live very well and for a very long time in one place providing it’s sunny, there’s a water supply and our cupboards are stocked. The biggest problem though of course is often there isn’t water, so once the water in our tanks is nearing it’s end we either have to look at finding a way to bring water to us, or move on to a water supply.