10 Things that SUCKED on our Big Lap of Australia 

My Mum, Dad , 6 kids and a dog did the lap in 1962, NSW return. Very different back then, 1st persons to travel around our country in a bus! Pioneers.

What you should remember is this if a warning light comes on the dash and it’s orange in colour keep driving it’s warning you that something is not talking to the car’s computer correctly and you may have a faulty sensor or a sensor such as abs that can’t be read properly by the computer in this case you can drive all around Australia if you want it’s a warning ,you may use more fuel or abs may not work correctly but it’s still safe but if a red warning light comes on the dash you have to stop !

😅😂ha !! this reminds me of 1973, arriving back in Oz in Perth with £5, a 6 hr wait at the Norseman turnoff to hitch to Adelaide, eventually catching a lift in a 4 cylinder tin box running on 3cylinders at a stultifying 15 to 25 miles an hour. Those were the days. To relive the bordem we'd occasionally get out and walk alongside the car. Bonza!!

Great video. It is good to show the other side of the big lap. Corrugations are a real nightmare but sadly tjhey are just a fact of life. They can seriously damage vehicles so turning back was probably the smart move. The weather just loves to have a fit when you least expect it too. We did the big lap in a 1962 Bedford bus and breakdowns were our biggest nightmare as it was difficult to find a big enough tow truck to recover us and geting spare parts was always fun. With all the hassles we had, i woudn't have missed doing it for anything. We never go near the coast in peak season so never have any trouble finding camps :) Gotta say you haven't been bogged until you get bogged in a 2wd 9 ton bus with a car and trailer on the back LOL

First time here... what a sweet couple. Sue is a very good presenter, and it's easy to admire the long-suffering Nigel. 😂 I've been planning a trip like this for a while. It's good to get notes from experienced people. Thanks for sharing.

Totally relate to 8. The stress of finding somewhere, especially during peak, can be overwhelming. Cairns and Esperance for us was a bypass on our Lap due to bad timing. Enjoyed this video as we travel similar to you (but with a caravan); but even with the negatives I still wouldn't have it any other way to be off grid. ❤

Funny, I did some mad 4WD driving in a real wheel Cortina back in 1982. Nearly did not make it out but with some mechanical knowledge just survived. Later got that Cortina airborne due to a missing sign near Exmouth. Fuel tank came off but again could patch it to reach Broome for repair. Had a few tyres melting and had to make some compromising slow trips. Then with a new Corolla clockwise from Perth around AUS. It fell apart in Mount Magnet, later died in Fitzroy Crossing and nearly hit a Braman in the Territory all part of the fun. The worst was putting up with all them drunkyards all night when renting smelly old caravans. Later did the round trip anti clockwise in a very small 4wd van with light truck tyres. Yeah there were plenty of challenges lucky the Wikicamp app was not out so the ones who bought the book were very normal people. Even met some nice millionaires bushcamping. You have not missed much on Cape York. Too expensive with only 2 nice creeks on the way and up the cape you see abandoned luxury resort where the million dollar boardwalk is the common human toilet. Did Fraser Island 3 times, in a Subaru, then a little Daihatsu and 2 kids last in a 4 runner petrol testing my sand skills. Best of all is Tassie, twice in the small van lucky before the Wiki App turned the place into a mass grey nomad madness. We missed 2 dinners on a table when a rainstorm arrived just after cooking. Could still eat laying down. Little can stove together with a cheap induction and long cable did miracles when you could still find power points that are now mostly gone.

Brillant brillant.your voice is calming.and no stupid music over top of filming. Well done.

I did a lap in 1974 / 75. Went clockwise from NSW, all very interesting. The highlights were many as were the low lights. I satisfied my wanderlust. Camped on the side of the road for 10 days waiting for vehicle part will satisfy ones vision. The second breakdown in Bundaberg was enough and I never made it to Cairns. Forty plus years later I had the privilege to fly to Cairns staying in a comfortable Air B&B, getting picked up daily for great day trips. Anyway Australia offers adventure but you need money even for rough camping or you fly to destinations each year.

Hi Nigel, and Sue Thanks for the video had a few laughs at your expense, but that’s okay. That’s the Aussie way Cliff from Logan City

As soon as bongos or guitars come out i'm off.

I am a RV/caravan technician of 20 years and when it comes to diesel heaters i refuse to install the china heaters they are trash. You cant go wrong with the German built WEBASTO brand they will not fail EVER. thanks for an excellent video with some cool tips🤙😎

The best place to see tassie devil is a sanctuary. The only ones I saw were sadly road kill. Envy your travelling. Would love to do the big loop, but age and health prevent.❤

My wife and I did this before it was a thing and before the "Grey Nomad" craze. We could never do it now with all those people everywhere you go.

Absolutely loved watching your “adventures”. I remember doing a similar thing hauling a caravan and 2 toddlers around Europe. Did a daily diary - this was 45 years ago - still have the diary (in 3 volumes).

You don’t know how lucky you are to have each other. Thanks for the video, my first from your channel.

That pizza episode had us laughing but it looked fantastic and, although Nigel’s fall definitely was not funny, the way he captured the impact of it and how painful it was had us so feeling it with him. Thanks again for sharing. Love watching your vids.

😂My personal suspicion is also that it's only a fairy tale of existing kangaroos 🤣 I have been to Australia twice and never saw one. Will return this November again together with my wife and give it another try 😊 Greetings from Germany

Lived like this for 12 years, in the late 90,s and picked fruit. It is a different country now. Lots of wealthy people yelling " you can't camp here" or getting police and councils to do their dirty work. In fact , its downright dangerous and illegal to be 'homeless' . Now many of the same farmers we helped in the bushfires, won't spare us an overnight postage stamp of land. You can see the rivers, but they are all fenced off. I have a Landcruiser conversion with a good camouflage net. Most aggressive animal I encountered in all my travelling years was the territorial Australian Alpha male.

Dear Camp Winnie, Thank you for sharing your travels and your family. My wife and I have enjoyed them immensely over the last few years. Wishing you all the best for the future. Much love, Ted and Sandra

We kept getting diverted to Snow Town in 90-91 & reckons we were dead lucky.

When I was young, I drove halfway around Australia from Sydney in my old Holden Station wagon, sleeping in the back. However, I didn't have ground clearance for many of those roads & had to be very careful hitting the ground.

Modern vehicles = Electronics , Limp Mode etc , totally unsuitable for remote areas . Old Holden 6 cyl red engines in the outback , carried spare ignition points , condenser , distributor cap , water pump , 2 laps of OZ no problems .

14:30 did you ever patent the doughnut pizza idea?

Thank you very much for this vlog. very informative and I`m sorry also had a bit of a laugh. Keep safe

I thought all the roads in outback Australia were totally sealed. And im so surprised that the weather could have any impact.. Any old car should be good enough. BTW don't choose a Mercedes Benz...and extraordinarily it got hot in far north QLD. Unbelievable...next thing, it got dusty in coober pedy..400 million hectares of empty land and nowhere to stay.🤣

Very interesting and I’m glad you are doing these summaries as you transition to the next stage. Thank you for the hard work.

👋 hi thank you for this honest and beautifully created video. Wow what an adventure 😊

Hi guys. My favourite was the boggy road where you met the people doing the charity walk, and the dude that got bogged after you pulling him out then driving straight back into the bog hole.

Really enjoyed that guys. Thank you. Just sent the link to my wife :)

You could have cooked the pizza in a normal frying pan with the lid on and last bit without the lid. Not nice and brown on top but crunchy at the bottom….

That Mouse trap is a brilliant idea.

God, I would pay for a pizza like that one.

Great video! If that was the worse of it, you must have had a great trip!

I'd like to do this trip. Get myself a red cattle-dog pup for company and then head off. Set no time limit or time restraints and just come back home when I want. I really wanna see Australia before it becomes another state within the New World Order. The Australia I grew up in is disappearing and I hope I have not left it too late.

We did Cape York in August 2023, it was either very corrugated or under repair. It was something we expected. We aquired a fuel supply problem that cost us $1400 that was never fixed until we got home to Perth. It was all down to the corrugations and a fuel line that had unclipped but not fallen off. We came back across the Nullarbor at 80kph or less. Thanks Cape York 😓😓😓

Damm..., I think you guys have just created a new way of cooking pizza. 😋

mice are better than snakes 😆

Thats the problem these days, vehicles that think??? leave the thinking to the driver.... cant trust these new vans now, too much tech and sensors

Very entertaining. I remember you having to get towed. It turned out pretty well in the end. We had to get our 5.2 tonne motorhome towed, and that turned out to be a very difficult and expensive exercise. So, I can relate. Meanwhile, overall, I think given how long you were travelling and a lot of the roads you went on, you did pretty well. 🙂

this channel is single handedly combating my fear of aging and makes me feel so excited for what is to come ❤

Just brought mouse trap for the caravan! Thanks Sue

I'm in hysterics at 2 am at the doughnut pizza

Another great informative video thanks for sharing your experiences good and bad 😅😊

Desmond here thank you so. Much for your reply very heloful yes the kata tour looks like it will ve worth it i am not sure what the bus tour is doing on that day its a bit of surprise yes i will be prepared for the fly hopefully i get a fly hat before we get to uluru i think i might skip the camel burger because i am thinking the AAT bus we are on might have something better in the way of food a break for lunch i am flying qantas they are doing block boarding at the major airports number one to six in your group you have to wait for your number to be call before you board the plane might have to put a jacket in or jumper in be cold cannot wait its be seven years since i left new zealand because of covid and the lockdowns we had in new zealand yes i am exicted calm and relax

Pretty good recap, What a country Australia my brother if from Bowral my parents were Brits thats partly why I follow these Aussie caravan channels..nice people tool

vans even though they have a 4X4 system R not designed for corrugations & heavy Offroad work same as a ute & land criusers with no mods iv got a ranger BiTurbo with a Tough Dog GVM upgrade as the standard suspension is so what do U expect

A great ad for the 4x4 Sprinter: my dream van.

What is a stove top “omneea”? Where do I get it?

I caught a mouse and a brown recluse spider in my house on the same glue trap most of the mice I caught outside my house on glue traps. I've had issues with mice twice due to remodeling projects on abandoned buildings.

Me thinketh great information suggest a few more., Nigel falling off the bike action shots or bikini Sue to make it little more........interesting!@!?😉😁😅😅

Mile, I think your videos are great but, I would like to hear more voice description of where and what your doing.. just sayin😊

A lot of adventure! Fun to watch

Great video, you were lucky at Hopetoun, $2,000 fine if the ranger catches you in a non-designated camping spot.

Overall, you had a good run, as not too much went wrong at all. The injuries or the heater would have been my No1 lol, no-one believes it can get cold in the middle of Australia and you also have to look after your body as you are sometimes a long way from a doctor!! Lots of laughs from the mice, although I know these little pests are a big nuisance and everyone's nightmare!! Loved this video, it certainly showcases the things that can and do go haywire! Glad you can laugh about these memories now, what a journey!

Love that you showed as it is. We have 2 days left of our half lap and can relate to many things you spoke about. Our worst was in Kakadu and getting totally showered with Horse Poo by a car travelling in the opposite direction. It took two days to get it out of the radiator. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - haha. Looking forward to your Europe adventures. Cheers Colin and Jan.

Great points, diesel heaters aren’t that great, I went the roof top ac route for heating and cooling. Works fine zero issues so far. Running out of gas sucks, I would suggest you buy a larger bottle those small bottles don’t last more than 6 weeks for just me on my own.

Hi Nigel and Sue, another very entertaining video. Not that we wanted to laugh at the down side of living in a van but, these things happen. The look on your face sometimes Sue is priceless. Thank you again for sharing. Coen and Jay

Yeah! Shouldn't buy a European vehicle not suited to Oz roads!

🤣 so funny to see the way they are wrapped up and trying to fix the heater. you cant even see thier breath.

I want your husband lol he was pretty calm and cool in some of those situations

Perhaps taking a street vehicle, off road, was your first mistake.

Hey you might have been in Cooper Pedy when we were. Like you a big lag in a 4x4 Sprinter our only issue was the roads killed the rear shocks and we had to wait for them to be shipped in from Germany as our van was only 2 years old. Mercedes replaced them for free which was nice. We've moved back to NZ and had a failure of the main onboard computer. Luckily in a carpark not on the beach - where I take my van as i land sail.

I knew it was RRV as soon as you narrowed the pain down to an index finger and right knee. 90% of people report the broken cricket finger, or the dodgy knee from football or netball, and that toe we keep kicking on the edge of the couch when we are at our most tired. lol. So I am surprised that a Tropical city hospital didn't recognise what is a federally reportable condition. I caught a real tropical version in PNG, 2 years after having a motorbike accident that tweaked every joint except 1 elbow, and yes every vertebrae in my spine and neck and even the semi flexible joints in the hands and feet. I was bed ridden for 9 months with basically 2 hours awake and it took those whole 2 hours to eat and shower and then back to sleep for another 22 hours a day. 3 years out of work and 9 years of debilitating pain every xmas time for 6-10 weeks where I would have to quit work to rest my aches and pains.

you shoulda spent your money on a Webasto and had it installed. I make it a point to never scrimp on comfort items because this is inevitably the result.

great vid. talking about seeing wildlife. I did a 3 month trip through the top end in 2013 and mostly saw cats and wedgies.

The no-kill mouse trap is so kind. Good on ya for using it. I will have to get that type !

I travelled the whole of usa by vw combi camper. In Alaska I went down a trail by a river and got stuck on a rock. Close by were wild berries that the bears feed on. I got the vechical off the rock using 2 short star steel fence posts , and a hand winch. Be prepared.

I'm heading out on lap 2 soon. Spent a lot of time getting things fixed on the van. 1998 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 312D. My story about breaking down on the Great Ocran Road, just out of Lorne... Maybe I'll share that with you guys if ever we meet up on the road?

The only thing that sucked in Australia is the government , dont look after the Aussie of our country,

I’m Tasmanian and have never seen a tassie devein on the wild 😂

Hi Nigel and Sue Absolutely love your video. If you were to do it again, would you do it the same way you did it OR would you tow a caravan behind a 4 x 4 ???

Glad you laughed about the negative aspect of your trip. Life is often difficult regardless of a road trip. Unfortunately humans tend to focus and remember more negative aspects of life than positive, good and happy.

Bongo playing hippies 🤣 love it! One of the things I've loved about following your lap was that it felt real. You never really hid anything, and were always open about your experiences (Monkey Mia for instance). Love the Aussie 'can do' attitude with saving pizza night. Nothing gets in the way of enjoying pizza! 😊

Just returned from trip from hell for second time in twelve months, everything thing from bad weather, traffic jams,hosts dying and prowler in van. Oh well I’ll do it again in twelve months.

Rockhampton Hospital, I don't recommend. Largest employer in Rockhampton is not the best place to go ,under most circumstances. The service we get in the region, for the cost to the grouped local hospitals it controls, is very low.

I would like to have for comper Van and have the same Mercedes Benz Van the ambulance service use good way to Go have auto Matic gear box and The wife Can drive if you're sick

Desmond here yes i am very aware of the weather the heat the rain i think we will get four seasons on our tour i am taking a empty back pack with me i have a micro cooling towel

I'm sorry, but that pizza donut looks amazing. You accidently fell on a great new recipe.

Just joined you. Excellent commentary. Did the trip in a two wheel drive Jayco. Confined to mostly tar roads. Missed a lot but great journeys nonetheless.

Good on ya mates. Could've stayed home for all the problems there. But the beautiful background and landscape makes for at least picturesque troubles. Enjoying the trip...

ha nigel is like me on the bike never growing up thinks he is 21 like me haha an chinese products are the bain of my life too an covid get on your feet an get knocked down again crazy last 4 years bless you both xx

The first time in two years that “we’ve” made this mistake. Haha

Stupid over large glasses. What for?

Small gas bottles only hold 4.7kg of gas max

As a professional videographer, congratulations on the quality of your video.

FAB vid guys.thanks so much for that...We're in BrizVegas as well....And planning the big lap soon.....

You should get some feedback from some homeless people to put these into perspective. All common issues when travelling Australia.

Corrugations = go fast. 100 - 110 k and smooth as.

I've only seen 2 Tassie devils in-the-wild, in 21 years of living in Tasmania. Both at my rural house/property, and only by chance (dogs were barking at one, and caught the other in my cat trap). Never when travelling in, "the wilds of Tasmania". Although I've seen quolls that way.

Sorry...i dont understand why you had the additional chinese diesel heater...Why not use the vehicle's heater?

How much did your rig cost you - thanks

Our Diesel heater moment was contaminated fuel. The top filter dropped out of the tank cap and allowed rain water to get into the tank when we where at Babinda. Luckily we didnt have to buy any parts but it took a few days to work out the issue and dumped the diesel. Had a clutch fan in the car die in Mt Isa and we had to wait a week for the part. from FORD. But it was just as well as I got an infected elbow and ended up in Isa Hospital for 4 days with a drip... Then the Cape York drive was like yours on corrugations after high season in October. Spent a lot of time on the sides of the road in table drains, getting back onto the road to dodge the culverts. We managed to get there OK but I found that our caravan brake lines fitted by the manufacturer were only held on with 2 cable ties on each wheel and they broke. Cables where floating free underneath.... On average I worked out that for every week on rough roads it took a day to fix the stuff that went wrong. We only had 2 4.5kg gas bottles as well but didnt run into a gas issue as our huge solar and battery system was used for most cooking. Only used the gas for hot water and fridge. Ahh But I didnt mention our gas fridge failing on the way up to the Cape. Ordered a new compressor fridge from Melbourne for pick up in Cairns and fitted it when we got back from the Cape York at Mossman van park. Our AC also busted in Mackay for pick up in Townsville. Had to order a new one from Melbourne and fitted it in a free camp at Blue waters....Only one flat tyre in 34,000klms Our 9 months was pretty great overall...

your too old for that bike crap LOL Never use cheap Chinese crap

WELL you bought a Mercedes which along with BMW are two great heaps of over priced and BLOODY expensive with Parts, and VW is almost up there with them

australia...overrated overpriced

Hi Guys We are planning for a big lap and them lots of smaller trips. Watching your videos. I have learnt alot from your you tube Chanel thank you. I live about an hr from you and could really assossiated with your trips. We are at a different stage of life. But loved what your children got out of it. The lasting memories you can't buy as they are priceless. And you are so right about stuff. We have started the clear out and it is just stuff we have accumulated over many many year. Thank for the help you have given us to plan our new adventure and stage in our life.

Re the diesel heater: If you had used a small (8 hour supply sized tank) as a "day tank" and filled it off a separate Facet style clicky-clacky fuel pump directly tapped (via a manually actuated valve/tap) into the engine fuel line supply... there might not have been a problem? Glad it's been solved as correctly set up (as per many YT vids) they work wonderfully well...and at far less cost than the European ones....l

tell ya what guys, you make a great video and some of your trouble shooting stories have given me a lot to store in the old memory banks for when i possibly get out there 👍

How goods that spot ,my spot ,lol. At Lake Rosebery . So nice . Had it twice . And it was 36°heatwave. Place was packed and I had that water front spot . That's my spot . Claimed. Lol.