4WD Preparation Tips for Family Road Trips

4WD Preparation Tips for Family Road Trips

You know we’re a huge fan of encouraging everyone to get out and about on the open road; or off-road with the kids and the 4WD; it’s the best way to create memories, spend quality time together, reconnect family ties and explore nature.

While taking road trips is fun; it’s also serious; and it’s important you make sure that your 4WD is safe for travel, and you’re prepared in case of a problem. Nobody wants a family holiday memory that involves their family being stuck in the middle of the outback.

Follow these 4WD preparation tips to make sure that nothing dampens your family road trip adventure!

Understanding 4WD Driving Conditions

You may be an experienced driver, but remember that each driving condition requires that you handle your 4WD differently. Also, remember that you will need different 4WD accessories to help you get out of sticky driving conditions. Driving on sand, gravel, or snow all require specific knowledge, and even situations such as driving in high heat while towing will require mindful decisions to be made. If you plan on a trip around the country or even just regular 4wd’ing trips; it’s a great idea to do a 4wd driving course, or even just join the local 4WD club and learn through the knowledge of experienced drivers.

4wd vehicle preparation

Carry a 4WD Outback Survival Kit

Aside from bringing a first aid kit on your road travels, you will also need to bring your 4WD’s outback survival kit. For example, bringing 2 spare tyres and a spare wheel should be on your list. Recovery tools, plugs, and wheel bearing kits are also useful to have, as is an air compressor. Make sure your gear is rated for use with your 4WD. Many products are suited to smaller cars and 4WD’s often require heavy duty gear due to their size and weight.

Carry a Heavy Duty Air Compressor When Driving a 4WD

The more off-road driving you do, the more you’ll end up using your air compressor. Hence, having a heavy duty air compressor is a must have accessory if you own a 4WD; you never know when you might need to re-inflate your tyres. You may even use the air compressor to inflate camping accessories like inflatable floating devices or an airbed! Having a heavy duty compressor is a must for those with a 4WD. Our patrol runs on light truck tyres and a standard compressor just doesn’t cut it when trying to inflate our tyres, it’s no good carrying a compressor unless it’s right for the job.

Understand & Implement 4wd Preparation for Long Trips

Make sure that you have your vehicle inspected by the 4WD experts before taking it out for long off-road trips. The state of the brakes, the level of fluids and the condition of the oil tank are among those that should be checked. You can also ask your 4WD specialist like Macquarie 4×4 for any advice about the proper accessories and tools you need to bring on your trip. Become familiar with websites that provide information so you know the types of things to look out for; but head to the experts for a thorough safety check.

Carrying Excess Weight Risks Lives & Insurance Validity

4WDs are not trucks. So don’t try to bring everything for your camping trip, otherwise you might end up with an overloaded and broken down vehicle. To avoid this ugly scenario, prioritise bringing the essentials: water, food, fuel, shelter, and clothes. Don’t forget to bring communication devices in case you need to call for help, but aside from that, leave all other gadgets at home and focus on the family trip and the scenery! 4WD’s are often fitted out with accessories that add weight and when people and camp gear are thrown in on top of this, the car actually becomes illegal to drive. Please know your weights; if you don’t, your insurance is likely to be void in case of an accident.

So what are you waiting for? Have your 4WD’s checked and plan your family’s next big camping trip! Don’t forget to share your safety tips with us as well.

 

Great Ocean Road Budget Camping for Families – Torquay to Lorne

Great Ocean Road Budget Camping for Families – Torquay to Lorne

The Great Ocean Road offers a special road trip opportunity, that allows families to make the most of some of Australia’s most unique landscapes and stunning coastline delivering a wilderness playground right at their fingertips.

Our feature series on the family travel along the Great Ocean Road began with a general introduction, and now continues on to some great budget family camping and cheap family accommodation ideas for a fulfilling family road trip adventure.

While it’s not possible to go Free Camping along the entire Great Ocean Road journey, it is possible to plan your trip to make the most of the options that are available. If you’re not familiar with some of the considerations that are important when free camping, then don’t forget to take a look at our free camping tips.

Due to the large  number of sites and camping options to cover, we’re breaking down our coverage into a couple of posts to make it easier to read through. The first is covering:

Free Camping Along the Great Ocean Road…. Part 1 Torquay to Lorne:

Free Camping from Torquay to Anglesea

The council has ruled that there is no Free camping within residential or commercial areas along The “Surf Coast” of Victoria, which encompasses the beginning of the Great Ocean Road near Torquay right through to the Lorne area, also taking in the towns of Anglesea and Aireys Inlet. The region has quite strict rules when it comes to free camping, and has ruled that the only Free Camps are within National Parks across the region.

Camping is only allowed in allocated camp zones, and these are few and far between. For the most part, camping near Torquay, right thorugh to Aireys Inlet will need to be done within caravan parks. If you choose to take the risk to free camp, you can expect a $125 fine from the council rangers.

Bells Beach Victoria

Major caravan parks in the region are:

Torquay Campgrounds: Torquay Holiday Park, Torquay Foreshore Caravan Park and Jan Juc Holiday Park. Pricing starts at around $25 off peak/mid week for 2 adults. Basing on an average of 2 adults and 2 children for families, you can expect to pay from $40 to $70+ per night for a powered campsite. Unpowered sites are mainly offered during Peak seasons, but are available at some parks.

Anglesea Campgrounds: Anglesea Beachfront Family Caravan Park with sites starting from around $31 – $71 depending on the season for a powered site with 2 people with extra charge for children. Big 4 Anglesea with family camping at powered sites costing from around $60+ per night

Tip: If you’re starting your Great Ocean Road travels from Late December right through January, then Barwon Heads which is not far from Torquay, offers Riverside camping with over 220 unpowered sites at a great price of only $220 per week for 2 adults and children included. This option is great for peak season travellers who are on a budget and are self sufficient.

 Free Camping from Aireys Inlet to Lorne

As we move down the Great Ocean Road toward National Park areas, free camping sites start to arise. These great spots are most commonly within National Parks, so will often be some way from the main road, and will generally require some level of self sufficiency whilst camping. Please be sure to take your own drinking water into these campgrounds.

Aireys Inlet Paid Campgrounds: Major park is: Aireys Inlet Holiday Park which offers camping for families around $40+ a night for 2 adults/2 Children in a powered campsite depending on the season.

Free Camping Near Aireys Inlet: Hammonds Road Campground (Great Otway National Park) is around 10kms from Aireys Inlet. There is around 9km of dirt road, offering 10 tent sites and 5 caravan and camper sites, it is open all year around  and has a 4wd recommendation. It offers drop toilets.Great Ocean Road - Erskine Falls

Lorne Paid Campgrounds: Lorne Foreshore Caravan Parks are 5 parks offering a range of camping options, all looked after from the same office. All camp sites are powered and range from around $43 + depending on the season for 2 adults and 2 children.

Free Camping Near Lorne: Big Hill Track (Great Otway National Park: Around 12 kms on the Lorne-Deans Marsh Rd . 20 campsites with access for caravans, campers in dry weather, and tents. Toilets available. Closed from June to end of October. Cora Lynn: Erskine Falls Road – Required to walk in approx 1km via Cora Lynn Cascades Foot track to 2 small camp spaces. Allenvale Mill Site: Allenvale Rd (Great Otway National Park): 20 campsites in forest beside creek, a short walk from car park, open year round, toilets available. Sharps Track – Via Allenvale Rd, turn onto Garvey track, then Sharps Track. No toilets, 8 camping spaces available, Access to Kalimna Falls, but no toilets are available here.

Just down the road from Lorne is Cumberland River Holiday Park – Paid camping sites for a family of 4 range from around $55 off peak, variable depending on the season.

Jamiesons Track is on the way South of Lorne and offers bush camping, without facilities. It’s accessible only by 4wd, subject to seasonal access.


View Great Ocean Road Camping for Little Aussie Travellers in a larger map

Use the map above to take a look at the locations for the camp grounds we’ve mentioned. The $ signs are paid campsites and the tent symbols offer free camping options.

It becomes quite obvious, that the more self sufficient you are as a camping family, the easier it is to find camping areas along this route. While some of the caravan parks along the way are pet friendly, it’s important to remember that travelling with dogs or other pets into the National Park is illegal, so it will make it impossible to camp there without making other arrangements for any pets you may be travelling with.

Next up we’ll be covering free and budget camping from Wye River, right through to Port Campbell. (We’ll update the post when it’s finished)

 

 

Learning Opportunities for Kids on Road Trips

Learning Opportunities for Kids on Road Trips

Family road trips are lots of fun, and what makes them even better for parents, is that it’s easy to incorporate an educational perspective into holiday travel, that allows children to learn and experience the world first hand without realising they are learning a thing!

Introducing Education Into Family Road Trips

1. Road Trip Travel Journals

Travel journals offer lots of fun and artistic opportunity for kids, and secretly they offer lots of learning possibilities too! Don’t feel that travel journals are limited to older children, road tripping kids of any age generally love to draw, write or share their own insights into their holiday moments. It’ helps to relieve boredom and allow them to create great holiday memories and express themselves. While there are commercial options available, it’s easy to put together your own travel journal pack. To keep things simple, our tips for creating a travel journal for your kids are:

  • Hardcover note books from the newsagency or supermarket work well for DIY Travel Journals. An A5 size is portable and a great size to have in the car.
  • Supply stickers or other decorations so that the kids can decorate their journal before leaving home, this will ensure they look forward to using the journal once on holidays.
  • Allow creative expression. Encourage certain information to be recorded in the journal but don’t make any rules.

Ideas for travel journal content for your kids:

  • Draw pictures of places, buildings, attractions, wildlife, anything they see
  • Draw maps of places you visit, places you stay, even your holiday accomodation.
  • Leave blank pages when they write about attractions etc so they can glue photos in when they get home.
  • Collect travel brochures and glue them in.
  • For older kids: Keep a daily journal of what they experience each day
  • Track Kilometres travelled each day along with times, fuel costs etc.
  • Anything else that may be of interest to your child depending on their age.
  • Pack a “journal kit” for the kids to use including scissors, pencils, glue etc
2. Track your travels on a map.

This is a really fun thing to do with children of all ages. Get a suitable map that shows both your home and your road trip destinations. Before you leave home, place a marker on your home town/city then, depending on the age of your children, help them to plot your travels on the map, or allow them to do it. You can either do this as a family, or give the kids a map of their own. You don’t need to buy expensive maps for this, you can simply print a map out from the internet before you leave.

After or during your trip, for older children, this gives them to opportunity to research distances between towns etc. It’s also great for them to plot departure/arrival times, stop times and locations and fuel expenses. By turning this into a fun adventurous exercise this helps your child learn a whole range of life skills and mathematical skills without it being boring and mundane.

3. Give your children a camera or video camera to use.

When children get the chance to capture their own childrens holiday photos, amazing things can happen. Unlike adults, children aren’t always focused on the photos they are supposed to take, and generally, happily snap away to capture the world as they see it. Children see things differently not only because of their height, but also because of their different view on people and the world. Digital photography makes it inexpensive for children to snap photos happily without incurring the expense of photo printing.

To create the best educational opportunity, allow your kids to print their photos and add them to their travel journal. Talk with them about why they took certain photos, what they experienced and their favourite parts of the  holiday. This helps with their communication skills.

These ideas are just a few simple ones of how you can create educational, yet fun opportunities on your next Aussie family road trip. Of course researching places, people, animals etc that they have seen is a great way to broaden their knowledge and even if they don’t write it down, talking about it as a family is lots of fun and sometimes we underestimate the power of a simple conversation with our children and what they can learn from it.

Don’t be afraid to try things like journals and modify ideas to suit your family and travel style. Regardless, you’re sure to create a lovely keepsake that will be looked back on in years to come. Do you have any travel tips you’d like to share, please do!

5 Reasons To Travel Australia With Your Family

5 Reasons To Travel Australia With Your Family

Australia is known as the lucky country, and for good reason, for those of us who live here, we really are blessed with an amazing gift. Sure, there’s things that aren’t how we wish them to be, but for the most part we’re blessed with AMAZING Australian nature and wildlife, a great laid back culture, great healthcare, great education and the opportunity to live our dreams if we really want them enough. I’m not going to get into arguments about what may be lacking in the areas of health care and education, and you wouldn’t either if you really took time out to compare our standard of living to many countries in the world!

With that being said, I often wonder if our country is so amazing, why is it that so many people I know have travelled overseas yet never visited Kakadu, Uluru, The Kimberley’s or any of the other amazing destinations we have right on our doorstep? There are people risking their lives for the chance to live in our country, and yet so many Aussies tend to flit off overseas for their family holidays. What happened to the great Australian family holiday? The one where you take a family road trip and explore what our rich red soil has to offer?

There are so many reasons to stay home and travel Australia with your kids and skip the overseas holiday for now, here’s our top 5 reasons for travelling Australia with your family 🙂

  • 1. You’ll discover just how little you know about Australia and you’ll learn heaps! In the days when the furthest I’d ventured from home was 4-5 hours, I honestly thought I knew what Australia was about. Oh boy how wrong was I! Venturing into different states and regions of Australia is sometimes comparable with exploring a new country! There is a vast divide between what life is like in Cities or coastal regions vs life in remote communities and outback towns. There’s even a huge difference between our Capital Cities. People speak a little differently, have different stories, and different issues, yet we’re all uniquely Aussie and that connects us all.
  • 2. You’ll support local industry and help keep people in jobs. Australia has faired reasonably well in in respect to the Global Financial Crisis, but that doesn’t mean that some industries haven’t suffered. Our healthy economy means that it’s become cheaper for Aussies to travel overseas and more expensive for people to visit us from abroad, that makes for a tourism industry that’s feeling the pinch. If you can’t afford to stay in 5 star hotels, there’s plenty of ways to make travelling around Australia affordable, by camping, or choosing family cabins, caravans or even camper trailers you can spread your money further than otherwise possible. Every little town you visit on the way, every small business you support will be oh so grateful!
  • 3. You’re children will be inspired! This is especially true if you’re living in a large suburban area or city. Heck we live in regional Australia and our kids are still blown away each time they explore a new corner of our country. Children are inquisitive by nature, they love to discover and explore and there’s lots of opportunity to do that on the road. Not only will they learn so much about the country that’s nurturing them, they’ll learn about other cultures too. You’ll meet lots of people travelling from a wide range of countries on the road, and it’s great to listen to their stories and lifestyles back in their homeland.
  • 4. Bridge the Gap! Theres no excuse not to visit friends in distant places if you’re travelling Australia on your own schedule. Take the opportunity to do numerous road stops on the way, discover all the great towns and landmarks and treat yourself to visits with people you don’t get to see often. Staying with friends and family can save you money too.
  • 5. REALLY get to know your Family! Not only will travelling give you a chance to reconnect with those you’ve been missing, but it’s also one of the best opportunities to get to know your own family. In our busy schedules it’s easy to pretend we’re spending time together, but more often than not it’s just fleeting moments of chit chat. Living on top of one another brings about amazing opportunities to not only get to know your children, it also allows you to learn and explore together creating memories that will last a lifetime and help shape your children for the future.
While I absolutely understand the desire to travel overseas, I truly feel that people often push aside exploring their own country simply because it is there, and they feel it will always be there. Life truly is too short to not see Australia, and I can’t recommend enough hitting the road with your children, no matter their age to open your hearts and minds together to forge memories that are unforgettable!