Things we learnt on the Winter 2025 trip

We don’t like caravan parks as they can feel like sardines, but they are a good option sometimes, when you have a large load of washing to do and don’t want to stand around waiting for it at a laundrette. Some better caravan parks in the outback also have other attractions like live music, an artesian pool, or communal campfires and food, so it’s good to check if anything extra is happening before booking.

Our favourite camping sites for this trip all had the advantage of being able to camp where you want within a large area – these included the Goodooga Artesian Spa carpark, Warroo River Bridge free camp and Charleys Creek campground at Chinchilla.

As you can see from the map, the majority of places we stayed were free camps with the occasional caravan park or showground when washing needed to be done, or when there was no other (legal) option. Stealth camping for us is probably a thing of the past since we are fairly conspicuous these days.

Favourite places we visited included Maleny Birdworld, Carnarvon Gorge, the Tambo chicken races and Boulia camel races, Cunnamulla Hot Springs and the Roma stock saleyards on Tuesday sale day. We would go back to any of these a second time, except maybe with a mask for the saleyards!

Even with a higher GVM of 4250kgs, the maximum allowed weight at the back is 2610kg, and that’s where most of the storage is. Our weigh-in when we picked up Lorikeet, with full fuel and water but not much else packed in the rear, was 2260kg at the rear, leaving us with 350kg capacity to pack with. That was better than the 80kg capacity we had left with our previous Pathfinder motorhome! You always need to weigh in before leaving on a trip to check that you haven’t overpacked, both for safety and to ensure you are covered by insurance.

Running Starlink and the inverter together all day, will chew up lots of power and you won’t be able to get the batteries charged up again off-grid unless you have a full sunny day and do at least 5 or 6 hours of driving. So the lesson was, even with 4 solar panels and 4 batteries you still have to be a little bit conservative with power. Only turn on the inverter when you need it, for the induction cooktop or the toaster, using the 12V points for charging phones etc where possible. And only use Starlink when you know you won’t have normal internet reception between towns, otherwise use the mobile hotspot on your phone for your laptop/tablet. We potentially could stay offgrid forever, even using the aircon occasionally.

There is a lot of debate about different toilet options these days. We have a separating toilet (some call compost toilet) which does just that, separates the number 1s and 2s, and allows simple removal – number 1s to any normal toilet or into the bush and the number 2s into a biodegradable bag that can be put into a bin (preferably a compost bin if available) or buried. We need to empty the number 1s container every 2 or 3 days as its only 1.7L capacity. We use sawdust after each number 2 to help dry it out and reduce odour. Since we are often out during the day, the number 2’s container never fills up, but we still empty it about every week or so anyway. Toilet paper goes into the number 2s container as well.

Other toilet options we rejected are a composting toilet which uses an agitator to stir the sawdust or coconut coir through the number 2s which helps commence the composting process. Consequently, they generally need another way to dispose of toilet paper as it will get caught in the agitator. The traditional flushing type toilet or SOG has a cassette which needs chemicals and to be dumped into a dump point, which most towns have, but some of which are disgusting in our past experience. The latest are incinerating toilets which need more power to run, making them a no-go in my opinion.

It’s good to be home in Windellama, and we’ve only been here for a week, but Facebook photos of other people still travelling, makes me miss the outback already! Time to start planning the next trip. Kati Thanda, Lake Eyre, maybe, while it’s still full of floodwater? Or a South Coast beach getaway as its warming up?