what a year its been!! since setting off on may 23rd last from our home the gold coast, we have managed to somehow travel the whole way round aus in our bus "wags the white kombi".

So after spending the last 10 months living in our home sweet kombi we are forced to come back to this thing we call the real world and it sux hehe. I think i kinda got use to the freedom the travelling from town to town and waking up and wondering where the hell we are today.

Having said how depressing it to come home and settle down, it felt like such an achievement to have done 25735km round aus in a car that is 6 years older than me. (especially since most of our family said we were crazy to do it in a kombi). What was even more amazing is that we lived in a space the size of a big wardrobe without having to file for a divorce at the end of the trip.
(*advise for newlyweds like us if you can survive a year in a kombi with your other half you can survive anything.)

There were so many places that we loved along the way, but there were a few that just blew our mind. North Qld was brilliant we lived in cape trib for 4 months working, with the barrier reef 5 minutes away and the daintree rainforest literally as a backyard. And that drive from cape trib to cairns was our fave stretch of road in aus.

most of the N.T was nice but bloody hot. we saw katherine gorge, darwin and kakadu just Brilliant.

Then W.A which was our fave state Except we weren't a fan of the size of it. Broome was awesome, Then we smashed our windscreen in karatha, went to exmouth and the unbelievable ningaloo and got to perth just in time for christmas. Stayed in freo for a month saw rottnest island wave rock Margarate river. The drive to pemberton was another highlite adn watched my missus clime the gloschter tree. then we hoped on the nullabour which was allot funner than we expected.

That brings me to south aus after the huge nullabour drive we got to adelade didn't see much of it. but drove though the hills on the hottest day in living memory. so i had to go to the naracoote caves to cool down. We stayed at penola near coonawarra which wqas the most beautiful little town we came across.

VICToria the great ocean road melbourne.

NSW drove up the snowy mountains Thhrough canberra then to sydney and crossed the border to the gold coast.

Its gotten so late i've actually forgotten the point to this story. But it'd be cool to hear from any of you guys out there who remeber when thay travelled round aus in a vw.

But the most imporatant thing i learnt on this trip was to always believe the best in people cause were all in the same dammed boat.


bed time.
I'll post some cool pix of the trip when i'm not half asleep.

Cheers scotte







































:beer:beer:beer:beer:rudolf

Welcome home, Great trip;
we are setting off soon, same trip, but via back roads where possible... any advice on whats needed en route etc, apart from $$? Did you stay at van parks most/some/little of the time? stealth camping? when you recover, more details can be posted on associated site, aussie campers There are links in the forum.
glad you had a safe trip
tonyg
'89 transporter, subie 2.5 conversion, stealth camper

Welcome home, Great trip;
we are setting off soon, same trip, but via back roads where possible... any advice on whats needed en route etc, apart from $$? Did you stay at van parks most/some/little of the time? stealth camping? when you recover, more details can be posted on associated site, aussie campers There are links in the forum.
glad you had a safe trip
tonyg
'89 transporter, subie 2.5 conversion, stealth camper

Welcome home, Great trip;
we are setting off soon, same trip, but via back roads where possible... any advice on whats needed en route etc, apart from $$? Did you stay at van parks most/some/little of the time? stealth camping? when you recover, more details can be posted on associated site, aussie campers There are links in the forum.
glad you had a safe trip
tonyg
'89 transporter, subie 2.5 conversion, stealth camper

very cool. am plannign to set of myself early next year. you should put a mini-diary or a trip report up on aussiekombikamper!

there are a lot of us with this thought. the lady though wants a toilet and showr, which makes it hard for a kombi trip. can you tell us more about whre you stayed, ie did you spend all your time in the kombi, and about the showers nd toilets. like tonyg would like to know more of what you took and maybe how much you spent. i want to actually go for a few years. this way i could take a lot of zigs and maybe a few zags along the way.
look forward to pics of your ride and the trip

well its good to hear so many of you crazy dubbers are doin the aussie trip.
My advise is don't wait til everything is perfectly the way you want it, we never would have left if we did. by time you hit the road you will realise how much crap you have bought that you don't need.
We took a travel diary, a petrol/car logbook (for intrests sake) a normal camera (10 rolls of film half still to be devloped), a video camera (4 tapes) and digital camera with about 500 images.
We worked for about 4 months of the trip but every other night we stayed in we stayed in a caravan park of sorts which ended being one of our biggest expenses. being Big4 members saved us a bit of money and their van parks were mostly pretty good.

I haven't been able to find that aussie campers sight can anyone help me?

Oh yeah here are some pix of "wags"
and our adventures.

My fave pic of the trip. this is sunrise over roebuck bay in Broome

this was in bunbury

Awesome, I really want to do that trip one day.

What's the white plastic tube behind the bullbar for?

Aussie Kombi Campers can be found at www.aussiekombicampers.com

[Edited on 5-4-2004 by Buggy Brad]

Hi Scotte,
While you were travelling, due to lots of interest in trips like yours and "Kombi Camping" in general, we set up an adjunct site to AussieveeDubbers,
http://www.aussiekombicampers.com/ 
For my sins I am the webmaster of that site.

We would love to have a trip report from you, as well as info. about the camp sites you used along the way; for that matter, info. about what worked and what didn't in your bus setup. You already have the bones of a trip report in what you've covered above, and I'd be happy to help with putting the info. together.

Have a look at the site and let's talk about what we could record for the guidance of other kombistas,
Regards,

Just quickly - is "stealth camping" sleeping in the van in a parking lot? Saves heaps on costs doesn't it. Then you just need to go to a real caravan park every three weeks or so (when you get dirty) for a shower. ;-)

Gotta watch the sleeping in vans though - at 2am (OK, I made that up - it was just 'at night') in Tuross Head (NSW) some pissed kids came and shook my bus, while we were sleeping. That wasn't nice. Mallacoota (VIC) wasn't friendly - everywhere "No Camping - including sleeping in vehicles" signs!

Have you got a book called "Camps Australia Wide". Blue cover, lists all sorts of camping sites. I'd never have found the free place near Kanga Valley (NSW) without it. But wait, there's more! Crikey!

Cool photos! Good looking bus too.

Aurel

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