How to survive long term camping and remote camps
- Long term camping for us is when we are in setup for at least 5 days – 4 nights without access to Mains power, fresh water and supplies (food, water etc).
- Remote camping is when we are at least 100-200KM + from the nearest town or community.
Supplies –
Food is easy as you can stock your fridge and pantry up with easy meals to last you over a week. As for cooking we have 2 x 9L gas bottles which last us around 3 weeks per bottle so we have no problems there. We use campfires as much as possible but sometimes this is not the case with fire bans etc.
Water is a BIG one that’s hard to manage and will govern how long you can stay for. For us we have 120L in our tanks, 20L in the hot water system, 1 x 20L Jerry can and a 60L Bladder. With the water in our tanks + hot water we usually get 4-5 days with 2 showers each and this includes cups of tea/coffee and washing the dishes. We have worked out we use about 10-15Litres of water per shower so 60L total. The extra jerry gives us more drinking water and the bladder goes straight into the tanks which will give us another 2-3 days of water.
Power –
We rely on Solar power mainly to supply our off the grid power. Our setup comprises of 500w on the roof of the navara, 200w on the caravan roof and 160w fold out blanket. The solar feeds 3x100AH lead deep cycle batteries.
We use a lot of power in our setup as we run laptops, fridge/freezer, fans, chargers, lights, water pump etc so it’s important that we have a good system in place. You may be thinking that we have a great deal of battery/solar capacity however with the fridge/freezer and Laptop (video processing) we have just enough. With the batteries we would get around 3-4 hours of usage every night as long as we get a full charge during the day. During the day we normally get fully recharged around 1pm. Now if it’s overcast and/or raining all day, then we are in trouble with power as we would only being able to power the essentials. This is the reason we bought a Generator as it’s a great tool to charge everything back up and it keeps us going with our video editing and Amyz can continue watching ‘Married at first sight’. We only run the generator during the daylight hours and will make sure no one is around that will be bothered by it.
Check out how we get water from the rain into our tanks for a fresh top up!
​
​
Safety –
Are remote camps safe? Yes majority of them are as there can be no body around to bother you. We have had no issues being camped in the bush and in times they are the BEST camp sites to be at.
What happens when you feel unsafe? Generally you feel unsafe when you turn up to the site and if that’s the case then move on apart from that we have never felt unsafe. If somebody turns up to the site and makes us feel uneasy we also just move on, it’s better to be safe then sorry.
What happens if someone is seriously injured? Car crash etc.
When you’re remote there is generally no phone reception (No sos either) and nobody around so if something bad happens it’s better to be safe than sorry. We carry a satellite phone and a personal locating beacon, this was a must for us as we don’t stick to the bitumen often. These 2 tools alone can mean life or death for you or even a fellow traveller so you would be silly not to have one. Sat phones are great for organising tow trucks, mechanical advice, camp site bookings and general check ins which family.
We also carry a full size medical bag which gives us the majority of items needed to patch ourselves or others up. This kit is so diverse it even carries an epi pen just in case somebody needs it on the road. To see more on safety check out https://www.akindustries.com.au/firstaid
Fuel –
We do not have a long-range tank, so with our standard tank we get around 65L which gives us approx. 400KM. It’s very important to work out these figures before you hit the tracks as this can also be a big problem in some areas. We have 2 Jerry cans dedicated to diesel which gives us an extra 100kms per jerry. It’s very wise that when travelling remote you have a Jerry filled just in case you put a hole in your fuel tank, a fellow travellers needs help or the service stations runs out of fuel. For most of Australia we have only needed our standard tank as majority of places have fuel.
Dog advice while remote –
We ALWAYS try to keep rusty on a lead as there’s so many things out there that can hurt her. There’s been countless Poison bait, snake bites and run away dogs out in the bush that it’s just not worth risking it. We try to keep her inside or elevated off the ground as much as possible for the snake reason and she always sleeps inside during the night. There are plenty of places where she can enjoy some off lead time, beaches can be great however there is known baits that can get dropped from birdlife that even beaches can be risky in some areas (generally sign posted). For more info with camping with a dog check out https://www.akindustries.com.au/camping-with-a-dog
Check out our video on dog tips while travelling Australia