I’d love to hear from anyone interested in life on the road, fossicking, flowers, photography, whatever, if you have any feedback or just want to say hi, send me an email.
backyardmags@gmail.com
Last day, over 2000km hiking a double bibbulmun 2021
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20 Comments
does yr car rattle ?
what do yo mean does it rattle? Not really.
Hi Joel. Glad I found your site. I am setting up a troopy camper ( trakka ) to travel around the country. Have no time restraints and will be taking my little mate Bear ( Shih Tzu ) with me. Two questions, my Troopy is 1987 non turbo, and have been advised to stick with the original pizza cutters wheels. Put muddies on, but not sure how they will go on the beach. Also does a dog restrict you too much ? Regards, Greg
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G’day Greg, good to hear you’re doing it. The debate about wheel sizes rages on and everyone has there preference, I think it’s a little like the ford/holden debate. The army and emergency services don’t change from cheesecutters, even fire departments in sandy beach areas keep their thin wheels. In fact I read some info online once that said the cheese cutters do even better in soft sand especially when you’re following in others tracks. But others swear by wider tyres. When I bought my car the owner had quite narrow tyres (though not split rims) and he travelled all over Aus as well as 12 months through South America doing a lot of offroad sandy work. There are other pro’s and cons I’ve read about with split rims, but a lot depends on personal choice and how you’ll use it. I’ve actually spent more time on roads, when you travel Aus there’s a lot of driving in between places, sometimes dirt sometimes black top, cheese cutters would have been more fuel efficient all along. But then another thing to take into account is ease of getting spares. My last 200 series landcruiser had an unusual size tire and it was hard to get replacements out bush, well Port Augusta actually, not really out bush, and I ended up with 2 flat tires at the same time, didn’t make it down to Adelaide before I got a second flat. So I went for one of the most common sized tires on the troopy, ones they will have anywhere, and of course I have never had a flat.. lol
Dog? Yeah, I started with mine but he was very old and didn’t last long, they are great company and there are plenty of places to go with dogs. Lots of grey nomads travel with their dogs.
Good idea to join the “troop carriers of australia” group on facebook, you have to have a troopy to be a member but they can be very helpful with queries about the vehicle. Of course sometimes you get conflicting advice and opinion, but generally a great group, very handy for things like finding a good mechanic in a strange state/town, getting help if your stuck on the road somewhere, and all things troopy related..
good luck..
Hello Joel , l have these shells that were my mum’s and she did tell me where they were from years ago but as usual l wasn’t listening!
Anyway she died many years ago and they have been hanging there for me to look at ever since .
I can’t seem to find it now but when l first googled pink shells your pics came up , do you possibly know from which area these may be ? Kind regards Maryanne Rollason . So now that l have written this l see l cannot attach pics , so maybe if you could email me l can email you the pics 😂😂
Hey Maryanne, I’m afraid that I would have any idea where your shells come from and a picture wouldn’t help me. I love collecting the shell grit and taking photos of it but really have no idea about what they are. I’m more of a plant man.. 🙂 Or more recently, rocks..
Hi Joel
I love your photos. You have a very good eye for composition. Cheers Peter
Thanks Peter, I get a lot of pleasure from taking them..
Hey Joel,
I’ve been reading a ton of the backyardaquaponics forums and your experiences and input are quite special. I’m really interested in spreading aquaponics here in the united states (especially Texas where the weather is similar to Australia) and I wanted to learn more about your experience and methods of selling home aquaponics systems. If you could talk a bit about that or have some resources I’d love to hear it!
On an unrelated note I hope to be able to live on the road at a point in my life and your story is real inspiring.
We are the new owners of Tingha Sands Howell rd Tingha and wanted to advise that we will not be allowing fossicking on Tingha sands
Gday mate,
My partner and I have just bought a 2003 troopie. It already has a Poptop convention but does not have a pull out bed setup like yours. I was wondering if your bed setup is part of your Poptop or if it was something I could add to my camper setup?
Regards John
Hey John, Yes this is built into the fiberglass poptop. It may be possible for you to build one though, I’ve seen other poptops where they have three plywood boards which stack on top of each other during the day, then gett put in place each night to make a bed.
Hi Joel, Tina and I met you on the Bibbulmun track and noticed you had an Aarn pack. How do you like it and is it as good as they say? Graham
Hey Graham, Yes I love it, there was no pain in carrying it fully loaded and when I’d stop to chat with people or for a break, first thing most people do is take their pack off, I’d leave mine on because there was almost no effort with keeping it on.
HI Great info! I was wondering what your tent was for the Bib Track hike? Cheers Helen
Hey Helen, I’ve used two different tents my first was an msr hubba hubba, great tent and pretended really well. This time around I ended up buying a Nemo hornet tent, lighter at about only 1.1kg for the 2 person
Hi Joel love following your adventures mate especially as i collect crystals here in kalgoorlie with my kids they just froth on running around in the bush all day finding odd rocks and are now getting a real eye for finding quartz and citrine crystals. i was wondering if you would share with me the location of the dump where you found the chrysoprase here in kal, not looking to flog it would just love to take my young kids to get a piece each for their collections. thankyou for your time mate.
Zach, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I don’t really want to comment further on that spot, or say where it is as I was told by someone that it may be illegal to go there… I originally had the location listed in my post, but I’ve deleted it. If you do a little research online it should be easy enough to find should you want to, that’s how I discovered it.
Hi Joel
I love your blog and how you have shown all the different parts. It looks like an unreal build.
I am about to start on my own troopy adventure and have been looking for model that has the passanger side trap door where you have housed the Kitchen. I can’t seem to find one so I assume you have done this mod yourself? If so how did you do it? and I assume I will be able to do a similar mod to any of the troopy series?
Your help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanksm
Hey Jeremy, not sure what you mean by the trapdoor, my kitchen was inside, or if take the stove outside into the fold down table on the passenger side. Unfortunately I’ve sold the troopy now, stupid mistake, I’m looking for another one… 😂