Comments on: Free Camping Australia

By: Hobo

Hobo — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:09:27 +0000

Hi guys, Good idea about the water containers. We carry one in the Moke all the time.
Raining here in WA right now – collecting rain from the roof.

Hope to see you on the road some time

G & T

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:51:50 +0000

Hi Guys, we are doing the same as you and have found some great spots around the country. We bought a couple of 20ltr drinking quality water containers so that if we are parked in a good spot we don’t have to move the motorhome just for water. We just fill the containers in town and decant them into our water tanks on return, works well so far.
Love your site, happy travels.

By: Motorhome and Caravan Info Australia » Blog Archive » How to Find Free Camps in Australia – (Part 2)

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:46:42 +0000

[...] Prepare your vehicle – make sure it has all the necessary equipment to allow you to stay in places with few or no facilities (see article on setting up your motorhome for free camping). [...]

By: Hobo

Hobo — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:25:59 +0000

Hi John, Thanks for your comments. I have answered you questions about the turbine on the posting about the wind generator. It is located located here …

http://hobohome.com/news/?p=231

By: John

John — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:46:56 +0000

Hi folks ,
Love your web site , very informative.
Please can you explain how you use, and in fact mount your wind turbine? Given that you are not in one location for a long time, is it a hassle to put it up and down? Also does one need a lot of knowledge to build the add ons you have done?
best wishes and safe travels

By: Tina

Tina — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:39:22 +0000

Hi, love your info, very helpful and interesting hopefully one day we will be able to live the dream as well. We have travelled oz for short trips, that makes want to see more. I like the idea of free camping some of the time at least. Happy Camping!

By: Hobo

Hobo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:59:08 +0000

Multiple charging sources can be a problem. However, so long as the charge regulation points are all simular and you decide on which regulator should be trusted to indicate “full charge” it is not an issue.
We manually control the output voltage (and thus current) from our alternator (on the bus engine). The current naturally decreases when the batteries are near fully charged. I manually turn the alternator off once the solar regulator (a Plasmatronics PL40) indicates that the batteries are full.
I have programmed the PL40 to the exact charging specifications supplied by the battery manufacturer and so consider the PL40 to be the most accurate regulating device on the system.

Interesting that you should mention wind generation. We have been looking at the 300w unit distributed by Jaycar Electronics (see http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MG4532&keywords=wind&form=KEYWORD) . We have seen a number of these units in operation in the last few weeks and the owners seem very happy with their performance. At $679 they are far more economical on a dollar per watt basis than solar – they do however take some time to setup (they should be mounted on a 6 meter mast). Right now we are in a very windy part of the west coast – there has been no sun for about a week – wind generation seem like a great idea for this place.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:15:57 +0000

Hi guys,
I see you are living the dream.
I am getting there.
I have a 20ft van, I have 6x2V batteries, 35Watt reg, looking for an 80 to 140Watt pvc.
We plan on getting a 4wd duelcab to tow it, with a flatbed rear to put the road and trail bikes on and the back seat for the dogs and pet rats (they are part of our family).
I plan to take a long trip to Qld via where ever we end up (I own a block there and want to build a house on it when ever we get there).
Do you have any probs with multiple charging of your batteries?
How do you regulate them all, without interferance from each other?
I was thinking of also using wind generation for longer stays at any one place as they provide high Wattage at a low price and can be setup on a semi perminant pole (off the drawbar) easily.
Any reason you don’t use wind generation?
I have not done anything like this as yet and I’m loving the steep learning curve (and learning from other people).
I have not yet read all of your site, but I have no doubt I will inbetween van mods, work and saving a few $$ before we hit the road.
I also plan on multiple water tanks, so we can reuse fresh/grey water etc.
I hope to find your advise on using rainwater to fill tanks.
Thanx in advance for any advice,
Cheers Simon

By: Lee & Gerald

Lee & Gerald — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:31:55 +0000

Hi, I have been following your blog for probably a year. We are on day 8 of our adventure. We told our friends we would be away 6 days, 6 weeks or 6 months…or longer no real plans, but we made it past 6 days. We are trying to ‘free camp’ but we are finding that a lot of towns are closing the free camps and two towns in the last 8 days have missed out on us spending cash there. We are heading up the centre then down the west coast, at this stage, but things could change. We are in a 27ft Winnebago Explorer, with Tassie plates, we may see each other on the road.
Cheers
Lee and Gerald

By: Phil And Sue

Phil And Sue — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:21:42 +0000

Hi, love the site, lots of good info and taking some tips about the water, thank you. We are full time in a 1981 40 foot tag axle Denning Den air, a on going project it feels like. We love it having a ball hope we will see ya on the road some time thanks again keep the black bits pointed down yours Phil and Sue