As usual the amount and type of gear that I originally considered required and our finances, or lack thereof, was at odds. So therefore the list, or wish list as Shell was apt to call it, looked like it had to take a few hits, and as I am willing to admit (albeit reluctantly) I will eventually come to the same conclusion, that is given enough time. Here is an example of how things have changed and come back to reality so far.
| Wish List | Actual List |
| Electric winch | Big Haul hand winch |
| Sat phone | No Sat phone |
| Epirb or Accusat | Epirb or Accusat |
| Engel or Evakool 12v fridge/freezer 60Lt | Outback Travelmate 12v fridge/freezer 70Lt |
| Store bought rear cargo drawers | Home made rear cargo drawers |
| | Home made cargo barrier |
| Laptop | Laptop |
| GPS | GPS |
| Recovery Gear | Recovery Gear |
| Puncture repair kit | Puncture repair kit |
| Air compressor | Air compressor |
| New Driving lights | Stick with existing ones |
| First aid kit | Put our own together |
| Dual battery system | Dual battery system (self installed) |
| Five new tyres | Use existing till worn out |
So as you can see things have changed quite a bit since the initial planning stages, some things were kept as they are deemed necessary, others are dropped altogether as these are deemed as luxuries and with some, cheaper alternatives are found or constructed in the effort to keep expenditure down. As you can see we considered the Sat phone as unnecessary if we have an Epirb or Accusat. The same goes for the 12volt fridge/freezers, by changing brands to one just as good as the dearer brands this will save between $300 and $600 dollars on its own. Mind you I will admit much to Shell's frustration I took a lot of convincing as far as the winch and 12 volt fridge/freezers went, but much to her credit she did get through to me in the end. As for the cargo drawers and cargo barrier, if I build my own it will hopefully save approx $2000 as compared to the ready made store bought ones, with the added bonus of being designed to suit our needs. And as luck would have it Shell managed to find a cargo barrier for a Mitsubishi express van in the Trading Post for $30, as these vans are wide, I figured that I might be able to "adjust" it to fit, anything was worth a try if it save me a bit of cash as well as a bit of labour. As things turned out, width wise it was perfect and I would only need to adjust it's height to fit it over the drawers.
However even with making all these adjustments, it's still going to be tight to start with until we get things sorted out, but at least it will be enjoyable.
I have 2 weeks off over Christmas and this will be the time that the cargo drawers and cargo barrier get made and the dual battery system installed. Also any work that I can do as far as repairs to the camper and general maintenance, such as new wheel bearings etc, this will hopefully get done then too.
As for where we'll be going first up, our "plan" goes something like this, as an initial shake down trip it has been decided that from here we'll go south or south west and eventually stop at Girraween NP until around the 20th of March when we'll return to the sunshine coast for Shell's grandmother's birthday and an open garden that one of Shell's ex-TAFE teachers and employer is holding on the same weekend, we'll also use this as an opportunity to drop off any gear we've found we don't need and pick up anything we've found we do.
