Campervan or RV or Motorhome or Caravan

The vehicle of choice for many around-Australia trips is the RV (recreational vehicle), motorhome, campervan or caravan.

Essential items you should have

Before you embark on your big trip, have a look at this list and think whether you have these or may need them at some stage. There is a lot of open road in Australia and whenever you need something you can be assured that you will be nowhere near a shop to buy it. On the other hand, most towns will be able to supply you with essential things like groceries and fuel.

• Fresh and grey water hoses
  
• 15 amp power lead
  
• Axe, shovel and hammer
  
• Screwdriver and shifter
  
• Funnel
  
• Jerry can
  
• Spare set of fuses
  
• Spare jack
  
• UHF radio and CB
  
• Jumper leads
  
• Toilet chemicals
  
• Tyre repair in a can
  

Checklist before leaving campsite

When you are on the road, it will seem like just about every day you are getting up, packing up and hitting the road again. The following last minute jobs will hopefully become second nature to you.

• Raise stabilizer jacks
  
• Wind down or put away aerial
  
• Lower down pop-top and/or hatch’s
  
• CLose all windows
  
• Put away mains water hose
  
• Disconnect power lead and put away
  
• Put away awning
  
• Shut and lock all lockers and doors inside and out
  
• Check all travelling lights are working
  
• Turn off gas bottle
  
• Secure all loose internal items such as TV remotes and cutlery
• clean up surrounding area

If you have a water tank on your vehicle, it is important to regularly to sterilize the complete water system.

These instructions are derived from those originally published in an an American RV magazine. For this recipe, you only need ordinary household bleach and some bicarb soda.

• With all your water tanks full, funnel in about 75 ml bleach for every 50 litres water (do this for each tank if you have more than one).
  
• Mix it all up by taking the vehicle for a short drive, and then open all taps so you get the mixture through all the water lines.
  
• If your hot water service is for instance 30 litres, make sure you run more than that through the hot taps.
  
• Leave it at least overnight (up to 24 hours), then drain out the water tanks (though not the hot water yet).
  
• Refill the tank(s) with fresh water. THEN open the hot taps to empty the HWS and refill it with fresh water.
  
• Drain and empty a couple of times and you'll have clean tanks again.
  
• Some people dissolve 1/2 cup of baking soda into a bucket, then put this into the tank to get rid of the chlorine smell (on first rinse, then rinse with fresh water a second time). Otherwise you would probably be happy with just rinsing a few times.