One of Carmel’s work colleague sent these. They look very good:

• Make sure you buy good stuff at the show – you get what you pay for and you don’t want something to fail at precisely the wrong moment.
• A lead light that you can plug into the car and also 240v power is a good investment.
• Make sure the chairs are comfortable as you will be using them lots.  If it gets really cold you can sit on a newspaper which will give you some insulation.
• Take a beanie – nothing worse than a cold head.
• If you are planning on doing lots of walking in gorges etc look at buying some sort of shoes heavier than runners and a good hat or two.
• Make sure you take a set of extra belts etc for the 4WD as they sometimes get damaged and again you don’t want to get stuck.
• Make sure you take clothes that are easily washable and not  too good (ie you don’t want someone pilfering off the line doesn’t happen often but does happen depending on clientele) and lots of $2 coins for the washing machine
• Take more pegs than you think you will need.  You can use them for lots of things.
• Have a stash of tinned vegies and never travel with no food (and more importantly no wine)
• If you have a good size freezer it might be worthwhile cooking up a few meals (you can freeze in glad bags flat for space and ease of defrosting) so you have something up your sleeve in case you arrive tired with a case of can’t be bothered.
• If you forget to take something out to defrost the car bonnet is good to defrost with when you stop with the heat from the engine.  Many a time I’ve taken something out of the freezer and sat it on the bonnet!
• You might have to resort to buying wine in casks (eek yes I know) but you will get used to it.  Bottles tend to break on rough roads.  Beer bottles don’t tend to break as much but just in case better to buy in cans – you don’t want stale beer through the car.
• When we were in Broome there was a push to stop selling cask wine over a certain latitude so we had a few well washed milk bottles to decant wine into if we went somewhere rough.  We bought up their whole stock at that point just in case.
• Some aboriginal communities are grog free so make enquiries as you go along and some need permits.
• Some of the borders you can’t take vegetables across and WA you can’t take honey into – I think you can look up a website.
• If you come across campgrounds with Wicked Campervans in them lock up everything – that was our experience anyway.  They are full of English tourists who smell generally and take over the camp kitchens etc and leave them like our kitchen sometimes.
• There is a book you can buy called Camps plus a number which lists free camp sites along the road.  Some are quite good others not so, usually have grey nomads in the them saving money.  We used them a lot as they are sometimes in beautiful spots and the people are friendly.
• Use campground BBQs etc – very little washing up – always a plus.  Generally really good in QLD and NT/WA.