June 15, 2003
My Review of a Britz Bushcamper
Even camels die on the blasted edge of the Simpson Desert
A significant goal of my trip to the 2003 Finke Desert Race was to do as much logistical reconnaisance as I could for our August Outback 2003 trip. One important detail is our vehicle arrangement. To that end I rented a Britz Bushcamper to see if it would be tolerable to pull around the desert, acting as our mobile Road Pantry and Rest Station.
The Bushcamper is a Toyota Landcruiser with the rear cabin replaced with some RV-style infrastructure.
Bushcamper as a Truck
The chassis is a 4.2L diesel engine, a five-speed manual transmission, and 4wd. The 4wd has high and low range. The hubs are locked on the wheels itself. It has two fuel tanks. It seats, ostensibly, three people across its bench seat. Airconditioning and a radio/tape player are the only amenities. It comes with no specialized recovery equipment (like a winch or high-lift jack). It has fairly high clearance. It only has one spare tire.
I liked the manly roar of a manual, diesel motor. It sounds like elementary school bus.
Around Alice Springs it drove easily enough. City planners kept in mind that 90% of the population drives a Toyota Landcruiser or comparable, so parking and access is no problem, except for some of the canopied parking lots.
On the highway it was tolerable. The extra high rear roof gives it some drag, but the wind is so sedate there, I wasn't getting pushed around too badly. Fuel mileage was mediocre. I didn't keep accurate mileage records, but a 4 or 5 hour highway run at 100-130kmh (without aircon; using 2wd) consumed roughly one quarter of total tank capacity. That's enough to get us from diesel waypoint to diesel waypoint with some safety and screw-around buffer, but nothing exceptional.
On the tracks it was good. We didn't do any extreme rubicon-style 4wd, just driving on their backcountry roads which are either wide ribbons of gravel, or wide ribbons of 18" deep sand. I popped it into 4wd and, after getting used to the vehicle, was able to run it anywhere from 60-100kmh (35-60mph) in these conditions. Sand, by far, is the harder of the two conditions to drive in.
If I think back to our previous trips to Death Valley (including the Lippincort Mine Trail), Arizona, and Nevada, I can't recall a single track we took there that the Britz Bushcamper would be unable to ably follow.
I think there are harder trails to follow (like the Finke race trail), which would be fun to try. I think their primary difficulty is sand, not Rubicon boulders. From what I can tell, to drive successfully in sand requires smarts and a few peripherals, not a more aggressive truck. Drive sanely, with lower air pressure, and have some shovels, air compressor (for re-inflation), and some traction material, and we should be fine.
Problems I had with it? After a few days of extended 4wd driving, I couldn't ever get the transmission to return to 2wd. I tried quite a bit, including re-reading the manual, but never made it. It's annoying in that driving around town is more of a fight. It would have been much worse if it was stuck in 2wd. Not sure what the solution is. Perhaps I wasn't properly following disengagment instructions? But I know for certain that previously I was able to shift in and out. I think we should research this problem (it must be commonly discussed) and find out what to do regarding procedure, precaution, and fixes. 2wd-lock would be no joke.
Reverse is sometimes tricky to find, but not big deal. The transmission and steering felt nearly indistinguishable from my 1989 Toyota Corrolla DX.
Foolishly I didn't carefully inspect the windshield when we took possession of the truck. I noticed a spider-chip a few hours later. Chipped windshields are a common problem there (especially when we'll be convoy driving), and Britz will charge you for them. We need to remember to thoroughly check the windshields. They didn't notice the chip, due to some clever camoflauge, but inspect more assiduously next time.
The dust level of the outback is staggering. Every vehicle pulls a mile-long plume that extends a hundred feet into the air and a hundred feet wide. For reference, Matt and Adam, it's very, very comparable to the desperate sprint across the Cadiz Playa a few years ago. Thus, you've got to keep windows and doors locked down. Some of the chintzy RV-style windows liked to vibrate open, so they required some routine patrolling. The ambient temperatures weren't too bad anyway, and the aircon was strong enough, so temperature inside was cool. The sun was pretty fierce, though, so for comfort sake we're going to want to bring some of those corny suction-cup-mounted window blinds. Otherwise you'll be making makeshift bandana blinds pinched into the window.
The headlights were somewhat weak (no big bank of Hella lights, like seemingly every other vehicle, 4wd and sedan alike, seem to have in the Northern Territories). That's annoying, but it's good practice not to drive at night anyway, so less important. The more annoying issue is that there is no "headlight on" alarm. So if you drive with your lights on in the daytime (not a bad idea considering some of the dust clouds you are tangled in), it's very, very easy to leave the car with the lights on.
My verdict that the Britz Bushcamper is a sufficient 4wd trail vehicle.
Bushcamper as a Rest Stop and Mobile Pantry
Once you've pulled over for morning coffee break or an afternoon lunch, the Bushcamper has to become an RV. It meets minimum expectations.
The specifications says the Bushie sleeps three, has a refrigerator, sink with water-supply, and two-burner stove, as well as dining table.
In practice I find you have some marginal cabinetry, a small refigerator a third to one half the size of a standard big Coleman cooler, a severely wheezy LPG stove, and a water tank and tiny drain.
The 'two' of 'three' sleepers theoretically sleep in a claustrophobic roof space that would remind you more of the Underground Railroad than the Orient Express. Instead, two people can manage to sleep in the one-person's bunk below (the couch slides out against the counter. Two people who do not enjoy intimate relations might not enjoy the closeness, however. For one person it would be no problems.
There is very little storage room -- anything in the aisle blocks the cabinet doors for opening. The inside card table? Forget it. Way too much work.
The refrigerator is more like a cooler with ice that melts slowly. You can turn its coldness to 5/5 while driving, but if it is just sitting on battery power, they recommend you turn it down to 1/5. We learned, the hard way, how flimsy containers on things like yogurt and cottage cheese are very happy to explode inside the box as you race over the road corrugations. Ziplocs and tupperware are the order of the day.
The stove frankly sucks. It's a coleman two-element stove to which you attach an LPG tank. Even using just one burner produces an incredibly weak flame. The regulator is non-adjustable. It can take > 20 minutes to boil a kettle. My mountaineering stove does a much faster job of things. Either we need to find another stove or a different regulator. IT really sucked.
The sink was ok. My silly wife didn't understand why when she poured out leftover minestrone soup why the sink drained extremely slowly from the on.
(hint: Maybe it is because the drain plug is 1-inch diameter?) It's really disgusting to have water sloshing around the sink while driving. Strictly liquids only in the drain (which just empties out below the car anyway) The water tank is something like 50gallons, which is quite a lot. We just used that for cooking. I had bottled water to drink.
Embarassingly, I thought the tank required a special fitting for filling. When I simply crammed garden hose into the tank to fill it up, the water poured out as fast as I was filling it. Then I finally realized, "maybe the tank is already full."
Cars are never quiet. Trucks louder. Bad roads make it worse. High speeds aggravate that. Having a cabinet full of cutlerly, stoves, and foodstuffs turns it all into a giant fiberglass and aluminum tambourine from hell. You can wedge clothing in amongst the stuff, but you just have to accept that it's going to be a loud ride.
The extended roof gives you enough headspace to stand up fully (I'm 5'9") 6'+ might be a problem. The roof is not climable and not suitable to shoot photography from.
So how?
As a rental vehicle, it's about all you can expect. It can serve our needs as a pantry and an occasional forward accomodation if one or two of us wants to camp out while the rest are at a lodge somewhere. (to catch morning sun for photos or whatever).
If I lived in Australia, and was fitting a truck, I'd be doing things a lot different. The cabinetry and bed arrangement is an inefficient joke. I could ditch most of that. The refrigerator is a good idea, but could take up less space and have bigger volume. The draining sink is sort of nice, but unecessary. The stove sucks. Nearly anything else would be better. I'd rather have a shorter roof w/ a nice rack-platform than having the extended bubble roof.
The truck has none of the safety, extraction, or communication equipment we'll need. Off the top of my head we'd want:
Tire repair kit
2nd spare(?)
Shovel
2-way radio
Snatch straps
Traction equipment
Tire compressor
Don't doubt that it's nice to be able to eat on a couch indoors. The bush flies there are absolutely disgusting. I've never encountered anything like it. It doesn't matter where you are, stand around five minutes, and a swarm of flies will be hovering and crawling all over you. There is nothing which repels them. They are ubiquitous. In the hottest, most barren, desolate country they materialize out of nowhere to feed on you. Flynets are a must. It's nicer to be inside the car, away from them.
So in my opinion, the Bushie is not perfect, but I think it is decent and adds a dimension of civility to the trip. I continue to think that we should have two vehicles no matter what. Seeing how little cargo space the Bushie has, however, makes me think just another conventional Land Cruiser might not be enough. There is a vehicle called a Toyota Troop Carrier, more like a Chevy Suburban, that sounds like the people and luggage carrier we need. I am not sure where to rent one of these, and will have to investigate.