For this trip we started planning at least a year before by researching the type of vehicle we thought would best suit our needs. It came down to the Toyota Landcruiser Dual Cab. It is a common vehicle in Africa so spare parts would be easy enough to find. It is a very reliable vehicle and would have the power to pull the Kimberley Karavan through what ever conditions we were to come across . As it is a cab chassis model we needed to get a canopy built for the back and decided after a lot of research to go with Rock Solid Trays and Canopies. We chose well because Jarrod and the blokes from Rock Solid built us a fantastic quality canopy.
Stock standard the Landcruiser is an excellent vehicle but we really needed to beef things up so we took it to Action 4WD in Warragul who are the local ARB dealers. David and Jarred got to work adding Old Man Emu suspension, a bull bar, winch, driving lights, UHF radio, roof rack, an awning, long range fuel tank, secondary fuel filter and lots of other toys to make it an Africa ready vehicle. I can’t speak more highly of Action 4WD and the people who work there, they did a fantastic job.
We have had our Kimberley Karavan for about 2 and 1/2 years now so there was not a lot we had to do to it other than a good service. We have been having technical issues with the solar charging side but hope to have that sorted out in Africa as it didn’t get finished in Australia.
Crickey.......we're in Africa! 