Van on the Old Telegraph Track | Cape York Peninsula 1 | Mareeba to Eliot Falls ​Ep37 

Thanks for watching. I agree. We think we’ve been pretty balanced and that gets up some noses - but we’ve always said the car has a lot of potential and it’s done this sort of stuff very well.

It varies for sure but most of the National Park camps and many of the council run spots have been great. Eliot Falls campground is very good given how remote it is. The station stays vary also but Koolburra was great - we were there by ourselves and it was very quiet. But their basic facilities were good. And the roadhouse stops along the PDR are fine. Bramwell facilities are getting a bit tired now, but we enjoyed our stop there and of course it’s right at the beginning of the OTT.

Hi and thanks again. Sorry about missing your comment I will go back to it. cheers

@@nextleveloz Thanks 👍

Thanks for watching and yes we had fun and those falls are just terrific and refreshing. We were never going to do the silly stuff - like the near vertical gunshot or Nolan’s. Palm Creek is increasingly difficult and a couple of cars we saw had some challenges there that we didn’t have. And taking a 3.2 tonne van across Canal Creek and into Eliot Falls isn’t something everyone does every day (and TBH we probably wouldn’t recommend it having done it now) We will leave the even more daring stuff to the adventure 4WD channels though. Cape York is an experience and yes it can vary quickly with season and wear. Thanks again and keep watching the OTT and Cape episodes! All the best.

Thanks for watching again. It was a fun couple of days.

Thanks guys. Appreciate the watch and feedback. See you lost a drone? Bummer. I lost out first one on Teewah Beach 😢. Safe travels. cheers

It did this stuff very well. Thanks for watching 👍👍🙏🙏

Thanks again Peter. It was dry and dusty up the PDR - a long way from a rainy SEQ! All the best.

Glad you like them!. Thanks for watching. Keep in mind the road conditions vary quickly with wear, road grading and season. But we hope it gives a good general impression. All the best. cheers

@nextleveloz I am planning my own clockwise lap from Qld, and I'm always trying to view the roads in all conditions. You're right. How quickly they change! Wishing you both the best trip.

Thanks for watching. It was lovely. Eliot Falls, Twin Falls and The Saucepan are all adjacent to the Eliot Falls campground and they are all terrific. You can day access them by coming 7km up the northern section of the OTT with a high clearance 4WD. Fruit bat falls are also lovely but busier because they are more accessible.

Thanks again for watching. It’s a raised air intake on the Defender. It helps a bit with dust by disrupting the airflow - the intake is on the reverse side of the RAI. It’s not a snorkel in that it doesn’t alter the wading depth which is 900mm as normal. There were no other options whenI installed this OEM version. There are one or two others now including one that requires body cutting which I wouldn’t do.

Hi. Thanks for watching and the feedback. Much appreciated. The mirrors are Milenco mirrors and arm but mounted in a bracket from Defender 3D in the UK. defender3d.co.uk/products/ols/products/tow-mirror-mounting-solution. The mirrors are fine, the bracket is great and holds them on well where the standard milenco bracket (and other brand mounts) have trouble gripping the bevels on the Defender side mirror. I also have some Bruunsgard mirrors which are also great but they are no longer distributed in Australia.

Hi thanks for watching and the comment. We took the view it wasn’t any use nursing the car and avoiding places we wanted to go that it was supposed to take us. Once we rebuilt confidence in the turbos then we felt we should continue on as we first intended. We haven’t owned a LR before either although I drove them and rode in them for many years in Army days (Series 3 and Perenties). Time will tell if the new Defender marks a positive turn around for JLR and as we get to see the level of break down incidence / reporting. TBH I don’t think new Toyotas are as reliable as the reputation once was. We’ve seen quite a few on tilt beds despite all the hype that people can repair them in situ and all new cars are going to increasingly be more complex and rely on technology. The current series Patrol might well be one of the last naturally aspirated cars with sufficient grunt for towing as well. So I get it and as we aren’t tribal we understand the dilemma. The Defender is a terrific car to drive and frankly it cruised. that part of the OTT and wheels / tyres aside the drive train and suspension are stock. So for us, hopefully the troubles are behind and the niggling 2WD issue gets finally resolved when we get home - but it’s manageable until then. It would have been a bigger hassle trying to change cars barring another big issue on the road. So let’s see. In the meantime if we intended to go somewhere like the Cape and on the OTT and tow off road and spend time off grid, we will do it as the car was promised to be capable of. 👍😀. Thanks for watching again and you raised a good point.

Totally agree re complexity of all modern vehicles and the related chances of breakdowns occurring to all makes is relatively equal nowadays. The belief that say Toyota is any better and can be fixed anywhere, anytime is simply a myth. Enjoy the rest of you're travels!

@@ericjohnson6802 Thanks for watching and comment. The trouble with all the brand tribal stuff is it can only reflect personal experience - which might or might not be typical - and market perception, some of which might be deserved (IMO JLR have to lift on their service culture) and some might just be scuttlebutt. In the absence of transparent incident reporting much os scuttlebut. What gives me the willies though is this old chestnut that people buy x brand (oh what a feeling ) because they believe a. it won’t break down and b. if it does (see a.) it can be fixed close by, on the road or a dealer down the road and they will be on their way. Modern cars increasingly won’t be like that and all manufacturers will be recovering cars often to specialist dealers. So maybe the Toyota dealer network is a selling point - no issue. But if that dealer doesn’t have the part and it’s going to take a month to repair what’s the difference if it’s repaired there or towed repaired and returned (the JLR model). So TBH JLR do have to deal with the market perception and up the service response game. In our case we’ve had an ongoing issue and hopefully that gets fixed on return as they couldn’t fix it before we left and we’ve had to manage (it’s a pain in the A) and we’ve had failed turbochargers - and that is bad. So that a couple of strikes. But as i’ve pointed out on the repair case - the turnaround was very good and the particular service centre was exceptional and as good if not better than service we’ve had with any of our cars. So some big ticks in an otherwise regrettable situation. But whether the Defender is actually more or less reliable (total package) than say the 300 series or the American trucks, or the Ineos time will tell. But what happened to somebody’s 10 year old Range Rover compared to somebody’s old 70 series - that’s about past not future cars. Just my 2 bobs worth of course. Stay well and keep enjoying your car.

Thanks. I will check it out. It’s something that will have to be resolved when we get home for sure. When it happens we lose all the off road terrain features, low range etc.

oh no, not more issues, my wife and I have been travelling in our D300 90 and other than an animal strike, we have had pretty much no issues. could you elaborate on this latest 4wd problem? Thanks for the great videos, keep up the good work.

@@jaipink8248 Hi - I’m not sure. It was a suggestion for me to look at another vid about a Disco in case that have a clue for mine. But no we haven’t had anymore issues ourselves except two roo strikes!

Hi yes it’s scrubby creek - I think I said Canal creek by mistake 🤦‍♂️and corrected it on the next episode. I realised when I was editing the next episode I’d said the wrong name previously. I haven’t looked back at that one for a while and it’s very hard to edit things after they are uploaded without deleting the existing vid sorry. But yes it is Scrubby Creek. Thanks for watching and good pickup - I am now looking to see if i can put an overlay correction in 🤷‍♂️🤔 the uploaded version . But I will also check the video description and correct it there if i haven’t already done so.

Parks don’t advise taking a van there because of the steep sides of scrubby creek and you certainly wouldn’t do it if there was a lot of water in the creek. But there are two crossings now the 4wd tragic steep drop in and drive around in the creek to the exit or the better crossing with a concrete causeway / firm creek bottom. TBH with a good high clearance van and good tow tug low range and being careful the crossing was fine. The bigger challenge is the fact the OTT from then on isn’t maintained and the ruts are getting deeper so it will be increasingly harder getting a van in as the road continues to erode. We took it very easy but there are spots where we had very little clearance to the edge of the formed track to ensure the van and car didnt drop into those ruts and there isn’t much of an opportunity to turn a full rig around in the 7km except the campground or at scrubby creek. So unless somebody is keen enough to remediate some of those deeper rutted sections, as time passes it will be harder to get anything in larger than an off road camper trailer. Locals advised us in advance that scrubby creek was fine but the issue was the need for very high clearance in some parts of the track itself. We aren’t the only people to get an off road van in and at that time it was fine with care, good driving and a good rig. So if people ask us we say that we got in but we note the fact most people don’t take their vans in as the road is more suited to camper trailers than full size van.

@@nextlevelozThanks for the comprehensive info. We took an off road (Cub) camper trailer in a few years ago and Scrubby Creek was over 1 metre deep so not keen to do that again but without the water it looked fine in the video, so might have to give it a go late in the season next time.

@@christieschmid6631 👍I’m not sure I can edit the existing video regrettably. All the best

No it doesn’t. Just the one diff.

Hi and thanks for watching. Great question. It was something that played on my mind at the outset especially because early on we were burning so much adblue. And towing you burn about twice the rate. Supply is getting better., but we top up if we get down to say below 8000km range and we see an adblue pump. Increasingly some of the 24 hr bulk fuel unmanned type places have an adblue bowser. But mostly we try to keep it close to full and top up when we see the opportunity. I also keep a 1 litre emergency bottle on the car along with 1 litre of oil and some coolant. I figure that 1 l will get me to the next remote fuel station in the unlikely case we ever let it get that low and of course if it’s a damaged adblue reservoir (leaking) we have a bigger issue anyway. We have found it on pump in places like Broome , Katherine, Alice Springs, Erldunda (200km from Uluru). Canarvon. Winton. And more are getting new pumps in as newer vehicles require it. Keep in mind even towing you have a minimum 4,000 km range. Worst case many places have packaged Adblue even though it’s dear as poison. (one place wanted to charge me $60 for a 5 litre container). Bottom line has been that while it can be scarce in many places if you keep it topped up whenever the opportunity arises and not let it get below half range - and keep a 1 litre emergency bottle, you are fine.

Thanks for replying promptly. What wheels do you have and what did you change on your drive gear. Do you have rear diff lock and air suspension. Cheers Mike

@@MikeTan7063 Hi- Standard centre lockable diff only. Air suspension is standard in the 110 SE and above. I haven’t changed anything in the drive train that didn’t come with it (we have off-road and tow packs) except we have changed the wheels to Tuff-Ant 18” Kimberley wheels and Maxxis Razr AT 811 275 65 R 18 tyres. The wheels required a an engineer certified mod to the rear brake calipers (alternative LR calipers as the ones on the rear of the defender have cooling fins that mean 18s won’t fit unless you change to alternative calipers) - all arranged by Tuff-Ant.

I thought air suspension was standard too. Bought an SE with front and rear diff locks. Double checked a few things yesterday to find out it’s an option now on the SE to have air. Was lucky enough to have not signed the actual contract and got out of it.

@@MikeTan7063 Ok. It was certainly standard in the SE when we bought but that’s 2021z That’s an interesting change. I wouldn’t want it without the air suspension, it’s been a particularly good feature of the car.

Thanks for watching and the feedback. July/ August is a good period for the Cape. Likely still a bit of water around on the OTT etc but not as bad as the early season. You might run into some school holidays. In our Lap wrap up video we do an overview of the entire Lap and the map / route section include the general months we did each leg. We were a month later than you are planning - so August / September for us. Minimum 2-3 weeks for the Cape in our view but depends on what side tracks you want to do and how long you want to spend at each camp / location. We have three vids for the Cape if that helps and the recap / Lap wrap vid touches on a little bit but it’s about the entire Lap. Hope you have a ball and hope that helps. Thanks again. Cheers

What time did you head off for the tip? I’ve checked dates and we will be aiming to avoid school holidays hopefully! Slowly catching up on all the videos, looks like you had a great time!

@@kerryferrari226 Hi. We left just after sunrise from Punsand Bay to the Tip. There was nobody at the tip when we got there (a couple of cars at the park) and one couple joined us about half an hour later. We were there late shoulder season after school hols, so not as many people around. Likely a few more at the time you’re travelling.

Thanks for watching. I think the tank is 12/13 litres. They say 800km per litre but in the conditions we’ve been and towing etc it’s 2-3 times increased usage. We didn’t get a LR tow tongue it was an option. The LR docs get a bit confusing (because they also have the european figures). But yea try to keep the tow tongue length as close to their 175mm (ours is 195 mm as the closest we could get at our tow height and not foul the spare) the longer it is the more the lever effect adds extra weight on the rear axle. The figure shows max recommended Townball height of up 35mm. you also have to consider the optimum / safe towing for the trailer / van so you have to valance both. We needed a slight upward ball height adjustment to get to the 490-520mm tow ball height for the van. That has us ever so slightly nose down when the car is level (the car levels at about 1 degree nose down when in travel height with the auto air bag levelling. Is the LR figures are important for sure but you need a safe rig overall so like all things you have to work with all the numbers to get the optimum outcome.

Could you put up a photo of you tow setup please @@nextleveloz