Luxury And Bulldust

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday October 17, 2008

Leigh Bottrell

This $200,000 penthouse on wheels has criss-crossed the outback, redefining where a caravan can go.

Two years ago, at an age when many other well-matured couples have retired to suburban sameness, Sydney couple Denis and Di Thompson decided they'd make outback off-road touring happen like never before.

Surely you'd take off too if, like the Thompsons, you had the time, an established business and the sheer chutzpah to tow a passable imitation of a posh city penthouse through the gnarliest country our continent can throw at you.

Then again, you might settle for a weekend with your mates at that nice caravan park on the South Coast.

In the course of eight weeks and 11,000 kilometres during June and July, the Thompsons towed a specially specced and modified Traveller Penthouse caravan behind a 2004 V8 petrol Toyota LandCruiser Sahara four-wheel-drive from Sydney to Broome. There were many diversions, adventures and excursions along the way.

After they'd locked their 4WD and van in storage in Broome and flown back to Sydney, they started counting the days until they'd be reacquainted with their luxury home on wheels. They marked it in red on the calendar: October 14. They headed off on Tuesday.

This time they are taking another eight weeks to head off-bitumen through the middle of Western Australia to the continent's south coast, before turning east across the Nullarbor and back to Sydney.

By then you'd think their hankering for outback luxury caravanning would be done and certainly bulldusted - the 4WD and van juddered, rattled, stone-bombarded and bounced into submission. But nothing of the sort.

Back in the offices of Alexandria Industrial Real Estate before they left for the return trip from Perth, the Thompsons were already looking forward to taking it to next year's Birdsville Cup meeting.

For Di, ("I'm a real inner-city girl, born and bred in Leichhardt"), her first outback excursion was to the Birdsville races with Denis in a campervan six years ago.

"I was a bit dubious about it at first," she says from the offices of a business that enabled them to spend a lazy $200,000 on their ritzy road rig. "But I couldn't believe it - I loved it. Now I can't wait to get outback as far as we can, as often as we can. Denis and I have nine grandchildren between us and I'd love to take them with us somehow.

"Young kids seem to just take to outback life and travelling. But no matter what anyone says, I don't enjoy the dust and I'm still a bit scared of creepy things like frogs in the toilets and snakes."

Di's inaugural trip to Birdsville was followed by increasingly ambitious mobile accommodation, until the Thompsons reckoned they had enough experience to go for the Big One. Which is when Denis's ability to envisage a large concept, work out how to make it happen and then screw it down in minute detail came to the fore.

He's a grey-gingery sort of bloke who reminds you of the leprechaun-like author Tom Keneally on a wind-blown day (Di teases that he likes the red bulldust because it puts the natural colour back in his wispy hair). A man of many parts - cars as well as life - he grew up on a Hawkesbury River oyster lease but left to become a carpenter, then master builder and eventually went into property development.

He also bred and raced thoroughbreds then discovered a passion for restoring classic American cars. Currently he's driving a 1969 Mustang 351 coupe and has almost completed a total rebuild of a 1957 Cadillac sedan that will lead next year's Elvis Presley parade in Parkes.

During the past 20 years, he's built a considerable property sales and development business across the old Alexandria industrial area of south Sydney, which is evolving into a trendy near-CBD residential suburb. The Thompsons live in Alexandria while waiting to move into an ambitious redevelopment they're completing in Erskineville.

Not by coincidence, this project includes a block of land with enough room to park their mobile penthouse between excursions, rather than renting storage.

As the Thompsons' built-to-order van took shape in Melbourne, they ticked off every last detail until it was time to truck it to Sydney for a live-in trial at Narrabeen.

"Everything worked a treat," Denis says. "And it was nice to handle despite being [7.3 metres] long and [2.4 metres] wide and weighing over three tonnes. Same story after reaching Broome, which is a lot further away than Narrabeen.

"We didn't have any trouble with either the car or the van. Not even a flat tyre. But we did help plenty of people with breakdowns get under way. We even came across three kids on push bikes, a long way from anywhere on the Gibb River Road - a boy and girl from Germany and their Aussie mate. I reckon they were really doing it the hard way."

Of the return from Broome, he says: "We'll just hose off the dust, double-check everything and then hit the track again around to Sydney. By going down the centre of WA instead of the coast road, we'll see and experience things most travellers and tourists don't."

And why not live as comfortably as possible while you're at it? The Thompsons' van is as luxurious as you can get. It has everything a top-of-the-line Winnebago might have and more. But there's no way a Winnebago, or anything but a heavy-duty 4WD, could get through the kind of country the Thompsons can handle with ease.

"With an off-road campervan or 4WD and tent, you're still camping," Denis says.

"You can buy other types of off-road caravans but they aren't truly luxurious and they're so heavy you need a truck to pull them. We came up with a luxurious but lighter van on a raised steel truck chassis and independently sprung heavy-duty tandem truck suspension and wheels with big Bridgestone tyres to make sure we definitely weren't camping out.

"Also we wanted better-than-truck fuel economy with the speed to cover long distances in good time, so we could enjoy an unhurried look around."

Fully equipped and loaded, the all-up road weight for the 4WD and van is almost seven tonnes.

"We averaged 30 litres of unleaded petrol per 100 kilometres to Broome and cruised comfortably at 95kmh on good roads. On bad corrugated surfaces, we found 65kmh-70kmh was the best speed."

Denis did the driving while Di navigated using a laptop.

"But she did move us a couple of feet one day in a caravan park," Denis says.

"Well Denis," Di retorts, "I don't remember you offering to do the laundry."

After all that shared comfort and married bliss in the outback, fancy leaving it until you're back in the office to have a little domestic dispute.

Probably enough to make you want to head straight back to the Not So Dead Heart.

Bumpers, bullbars and batteries

If the outback's ochre-hued vastness is calling you, here are the Thompsons' tips on how to prepare.

Be ready to outlay $200,000-plus for a Thompson-type vehicle.

Anything that can be hit by flying stones - gas bottles, car rear window, air, gas, water and brake hoses - should be reinforced and shielded with plastic sheeting or steel plate. The van's front and underside should be protected by chequered steel plate.

Fit heavy-duty steel bumpers, bullbar, winch, marine batteries and chains with G clips. Fit "dead man's" emergency electric brakes on the van.

Learn your rig's driving, turning and parking quirks and get plenty of rough/off-road experience. Fit reversing cameras on both car and van.

Plan and test every last detail before you leave town. It's important to keep your weight down, so leave everything you can at home - then some more - but not your golf clubs.

Plan stages and stopovers. After double-checking everything in and outside the van and car, get into a routine of starting at 9am and finishing at 4pm.

Take two CB radios for road train and tourist frequencies, as well as a Next G mobile phone. Use a Hema, or similar up-to-date map on a laptop, or GPS.

Have two spares each for car and van, a quality tool set, rattle gun, air compressor and power generator. Multigrips are a must as is a chainsaw for firewood.

Carry a separate hydraulic jack for level parking of the van independent of the jockey wheel.

Tape around van windows to keep out dust.

Take long-range petrol and water tanks. Petrol: 280 litres on board and 40 litres in jerrycans. Water: 190 litres in the van and 50 litres in the 4WD. Also carry a first-aid kit and air-beds for sleeping in the rear of the 4WD on off-road excursions.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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