By buying secondhand, we have ended up with a 6 year old camper that is in very good condition and which had been competently upgraded from the original specification by experienced campers, Tony and Chris from Canberra.

The camper has a fairly small footprint on the road with an overall length of 3500m and with a width similar to your average 4WD, there is no need for extension mirrors. At 2125mm with the roof down, the towing height is comparable to that of many pop top caravans.

Jurgens Oryx Camper Trailer

Visually, the Oryx camper looks like a brick on steroids and the aerodynamics are about the same. I’m currently researching ways to improve this in order to maximise fuel economy.

With a Tare Weight of 725kg and an ATM of 1250kg, the Oryx is, in theory, manageable by a medium sized car or 4WD. After our first couple of trips, however, we elected to trade our much loved Subaru Forester in on a Nissan Navara. The Navara can tow up to 3000kg so it handles the fully loaded camper easily as well as providing access to more challenging 4WD tracks with and without the camper.

The Oryx comes with a  generously sized double bed which folds out to one side of the van. In my view, this makes the bed much easier to get in and out of than many roof top and trailer-based beds. Beneath the bed, there is provision for a two person dinette but we doubt that we will use it very much unless inclement weather keeps us indoors and prevents the erection of the annexe.

A comfy double bed

Outside there is a drop down camp kitchen with a two burner Cramer stove and with running water provided from an upgraded 80 litre water tank via an electric pump.  Behind the kitchen is provision for crockery and cooking gear.

The camp kitchen with storage for crockery and cooking tools

Originally the unit had a water heater but this had been removed in favour of storage for a portable toilet. The heater was included in our purchase and we will be re-installing it and giving consideration to an outside shower.

The camper has provision for jerrycans on the A-frame and on the rear wall of the van. These can be used for fresh water, grey water or spare fuel.

A Howling Moon Leisure Awn 2100 provides cover for quick stops and an L-shaped annexe is provided for setting up your base camp for longer stays. The annexe makes a huge difference to the living area and quality of life available. The previous owners didn’t use the annexe much but then one of them had spent a fair bit of his life in submarines!

The awning is perfect for a quick cuppa

There is provision for a fridge to be installed within the camper but we are of a similar view to our predecessors that it makes more sense to keep the fridge in the tow vehicle so that it can be used for day excursions. For the moment, we have filled this location with plastic drawers for our socks & jocks.

Lots of options for storage

Within the camper, there is an amazing amount of room for storage for clothing, cooking gear and other essentials. With one full height wardrobe, several small cupboards and two big spaces beneath the bed, it’s tempting to pack far too much gear.

The cupboard nearest the exit comprises a camp larder and we have followed the example of the previous owners (featured in Campertrailer Australia) in using plastic fruit containers to organise most of the contents.

What's in the larder?

The Oryx is built tough for the African and Australian bush and with a safe speed rating of 180 kph, tough AL-KO independent suspension and a set of decent off road tyres, it should cope with our conditions with due care. Ron and Viv Moon tested one along the SA-Vic Border track a few years ago and were suitably impressed.

The trailer has over ride, auto reversing, drum brakes and 16 inch off road wheels and tyres. Unfortunately, this kind of braking system is incompatible with the load levelling devices that would have been required for towing fully loaded with the Subaru. In combination with the Navara, on the other hand, they represent a fairly bulletproof off road system.

The only way to tow legally with the Subaru would have been to adjust the balance of the camper to keep the towball weight below 75kg. While this was theoretically possible, it would have led to far too many compromises.

Two towing hitches were provided: the standard 50mm ball style and a Treg coupling which utilises a poly block to absorb some of the lumps and bumps. We have yet to try the Treg hitch but will be changing over to it for our next trip.

As this camper had been so well set up by Tony and Chris, we have not yet found it necessary to make many changes to customise the unit for our lifestyle. A 100 amp hour AGM battery was sourced and also an 80W folding solar panel array to be mounted on the pop top. The camper already had an excellent electrical charging and supply (12v/240v) installed including a Hercules 20 three stage charger. Additional charging on the road will be provided via an Anderson plug to be installed on the Navara.

One of the problems with caravan style electrical systems is that they require a 15 amp power cord and a 15 amp style power point if you wish to recharge at home. Living 16km from town, I narrowly avoided the expense of calling out an electrician by discovering that the power point for the pump on our spa was already suitable. So have a good look around if you have a similar problem.

On advice from the previous occupants, we have purchased a double bed sized, self inflating  sleeping mat as a stable overlay for the bed.  This maximises our comfort and ensures that we don’t disappear through the gaps between the various cushions that comprise the bed. This mat was a Jackaroo product found at the local K-Mart after searching the specialist local outdoors centres in vain.

We have also had the local canvas maker stitch a reflective layer of material on to one side of the fly that protects the outside portion of the bed. If it keeps the heat out long enough for me to sleep in sometimes, it will be money well spent!

A reflective cover for the fly makes sleep-ins possible

I should note also the fantastic customer service we enjoyed in purchasing this camper. Tony and Chris insisted on driving from Canberra to meet us at Wilmington in SA in order to hand over the camper and instruct us in its use. This was an amazing effort and puts us on the path to quickly gain the same enjoyment that they’ve had in travelling with this unique camper. Thanks folks.

I should also note that the purchase of this van was a private sale as the result of finding my way to the homepage of the Australian CamperTrailers Group. This site is a great resource and will allow the visitor to explore the features of a wide range of campers used by some of the members as well as lots of pertinent advice.

All the comforts of home.

Now it’s over to you. If you’d like to profile your own pre-loved camper, please feel free to make contact with me at: doyle@onthewallabytrack.com.au

This Companion version is well-made and only cost me around $Au 20.00 . It uses standard butane canisters and has inbuilt piezo ignition. The burner is fairly powerful and is the equivalent of the main burner on a household gas stove.

The safety systems are pretty foolproof as you need to lock the butane canister in place before lighting the burner and to put the stove away, you need to invert the pot holder which creates a safety lock preventing leakage. It would however be helpful to have some way of sheltering the stove for windy locations but you’ll just need to be a bit inventive to get around this problem.

We used one of these stoves during a three week trip in Tasmania recently. The stove was light enough to carry in our baggage and we had little difficulty finding butane canisters as we moved around.  A bonus feature we discovered was that the plastic case could be used as a shallow sink to wash our dishes.

In its most basic form, the Trangia gives you a metholated spirits burner, two aluminium bowls and a small frying pan which all fit within the stove itself for convenience. A small kettle can be added and will also fit within the packed appliance.

Depending on your need for lightness, you can opt for aluminium or titanium cookware. The aluminium may be lined with stainless steel on its internal surfaces. Last time I checked, there were three sizes of Trangia stove available.

This stove is quite capable of working in windy conditions and by using metho, is fairly safe. Metho can be easily purchased from a wide range of stores. Other fuel options can be explored including butane and multi-fuel burners. A major camping gear shop will generally have some of these on hand. The stove will cook faster with butane but the downside is that you have to carry and dispose of butane canisters.

A useful accessory that you can make yourself is a toaster. All you need is some strong wire (eg a clothes hanger or fencing wire) and some stiff wire mesh such as a repacement mesh for one of those simple stove top toasters. Bend and secure the stiff wire into a circle of a size suitable to drop onto the pot holders when they are at their lowest position. Leave enough wire to curl back over the top of the mesh to make a platform for your piece of bread. Now bend the mesh to fit over the circle. It’s easy and works well but try not to burn your fingers!

This kind of cooker has been around for over 50 years. You can still replace individual components if you lose or damage them.

Ours has been used extensively on motorcycle trips and on long and short camping trips. It is often the first thing unpacked when we reach our campsite so that we can boil a kettle for tea while we get our site organised. We generally try to pitch our tent close to a free outdoor table and use this as our base for cooking our meals.

From a safety point of view, always wait until the brass burner is cool enough to handle before adding more fuel. The flame may be difficult to see and you risk a serious accident if you inadvertently pour metho onto an active flame.

The Easy Cook is one of those gadgets that you often see advertised on the TV with heaps of hype and you just know that it’s never going to be as good as they say and you’ll have one more pile of junk wasting precious space in the kitchen cupboards. Not so. In fact if I was heading off tomorrow with the intention of using powered sites, the Easy Cook would be the first appliance I would pack.

What you get is a large round safety glass bowl with a heating element on top and a fan to create a turbo effect within the bowl. The food sits on wire stands and you can place food on three levels. Naturally the food on top cooks quickest and the food on the bottom is noticeably slower.

So, for example, you can have chips or wedges cooking on the top level, meat in the middle and vegetables down low. Yes a complete meal cooked all at once.

What is even better is that you can basically set the timer and walk away. I often (well not that often) set the timer and walk the dog or take a turn on the treadmill. There’s no need to turn the food as the fan ensures that the heat circulates on all sides.

The great thing is that there is no spatter. The food is completely contained within the bowl and no fat escapes. Food that you may normally fry such as wedges can be shaken in a little oil and just dropped on to the top rack. It’s a fairly healthy style of cooking as most of the oil or grease ends up at the bottom of the bowl.

Cleaning is easy. Instead of having to wipe over half the van, you simply need to rinse the Luminarc bowl and wipe over the lid. The Easy Cook can also wash itself if you partially fill the bowl with water and a little detergent. You’ll want to do this at least once just to admire the turbo effect.

This gadget is very flexible and the recipes are only limited by your imagination. It can cook cakes and there is no easier way to cook a perfect roast. On a nice day, you could even use it outside your van on a handy table.

Two bowl sizes are available: 11 and 13 litre. The smaller size is perfect for 2-3 people. The other choices include 3 speed fans and 24 hour digital timers. We have the basic manual unit with a single fan speed. You can also run the unit on a 1.5Kva generator.

Back up is excellent. There is a website at: www.easycook.com.au . We were able to replace the lid and heating elements of our ancient and very well-used unit recently at a very fair price.

If I was building a camper from scratch, I would build one of these in and leave out the oven. At home, we haven’t used our oven for more than three years.

You can find more details online and the units can be purchased through many large electrical stores. Pricing: $199 to $299. They sometimes come up on Ebay too but I don’t understand why.