Everything you NEED TO KNOW before travelling Australia!

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Hey guys, and welcome to a video that Biana and I have both been looking forward to making ever since getting back from our big lap of Australia. And that's going to essentially be a full debrief of all our travels.

[00:00:10]>> Yeah. So, we have obviously, if you didn't know, sorry, we traveled Australia last year in 2025. We took our trusty D-Max and stayed in our rooftop tent, so we weren't towing anything. And we did a lap and we started where we're based in WA, Perth, WA. Um, and because we're from WA and we've already done quite a lot of it, we actually focused most of our trip around all the other states on mainland Australia. We also left out Tasmania because honestly, Tazzy is an amazing spot on its own and deserves its own dedicated trip >> 100%. So, coming soon.

[00:00:41]>> Tazzy is a future one, but all the other main states of Australia we went to. So, yeah.

[00:00:45]>> Yeah. So, essentially, we're going to run through all the numbers. We've got our laptops at the ready with everything we logged and kept track of while we were traveling. So, we'll run through all of that. basically all the stuff that we ourselves would have liked to have known before we set off. So hopefully there's some valuable info in there.

[00:00:58]>> We'll try to be nice and honest about it as well. So >> yeah, we'll give you guys all the numbers. We share this spreadsheet at some point in the link if you guys are interested in seeing the numbers. We'll also run through answers to any questions that we got from you guys either through YouTube comments on the whole video series, messages through Instagram, or just bumping into people on the tracks to try and give you all the information you might want to know.

[00:01:16]>> Yeah. And in saying that, we've also tried to edit this video together so that things are kind of categorized. So, if you just want to jump through to a certain spot, then the chapters should be linked in the description down below.

[00:01:26]So, hopefully that helps. Um, feel free to skip through to the most relevant points for you.

[00:01:34]>> So, first up is the route that we took around our lap of Australia.

[00:01:39]>> I'll be here for a while, I think.

[00:01:40]>> Um, it seems like on the surface it seems simple, but a lot of planning went into this. And >> to make it a short a long story short, um we basically went through and had a few key things that we wanted to do and they were season dependent, meaning we had to be at that place at a certain time of year. Yeah.

[00:01:58]>> So we kind of got a few of those. The first and the biggest one for us was snow camping.

[00:02:01]>> Yeah. I don't know why we just both got it in our heads. We really wanted to camp in the snow, right? So that was one of our foundations.

[00:02:06]>> A novelty, especially coming from WA. We don't really get snow here at all. Um so to think of camping in the snow, it was like that just epic. Anyway, so that was our biggest priority. What that meant is we had to be in the mountains in the middle of winter with enough time to try and find snow. And that pretty much dictated the rest of our entire lap because we decided Victoria was probably the best place to do it in the mountains. Um, and we'd need to be there sort of July, you know, around July, August kind of.

[00:02:29]>> The second foundation really was doing Cape York and the old telly track. We wanted to take that one off the list. It was, I don't know, it was important to us to do and that we wanted to do while it was in its like um still early in the season. The crossings were deep and the track was kind of gnarly. pretty much wanted to maybe not open the track but be one of the first groups to go through.

[00:02:46]>> So that in mind, what was our >> rout? So our route, we pretty much just chased good weather for the rest of the time wherever we could and yeah, put in some things that we wanted to add. So we started in Perf, WA, we headed south cuz we left in February and you don't want to go north. You're insane. Avoid that top end summer. So yeah, we headed south. We did the south coast around Essence and Brema Bay and we did really cool beach run all the way up to like almost the border.

[00:03:07]>> Some of our trip highlights.

[00:03:08]>> Yeah, amazing time down there. Super windy. Then we dumped across went across Nullore into South Australia and we actually shot straight through South Australia literally just like high um and went into Victoria because I said before we wanted to do snow camping that was in the winter but there was a bunch of tracks that we wanted to do in the high country that would be closed in winter. Um one of the main ones being Blue Rag Range.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah. So worth doing.

[00:03:29]>> And also even just the high what are these the high roads? The high >> the Dgo high plains road. Yeah. That one that one as well which is not a full drive track but it's got a lot of tracks off of it. That is closed in winter.

[00:03:39]Yeah. So we went all the way across and spent like a week exploring the higher country. Then that was honestly the best decision we made. We had planned that on the way over. So we we actually hadn't planned to do that.

[00:03:50]>> Yeah. That won't that wasn't in our original route. That was something we kind of adjusted on flight.

[00:03:55]>> So anyway, we did that. Then we came back backtracked how many thousands of kilometers that was into South Australia. Then we did South Australia.

[00:04:01]So we did the York Peninsula. We ducked into the York Peninsula. We did the Air Peninsula. Uh then we did the Flenders.

[00:04:06]We did the Unading. Um there's so much in this trying to trying to keep it quick but you did all that and then we went up through the center. So yeah, Una data took us almost to kind of like Mari or Mala, I can't remember which end it is.

[00:04:18]>> And then you go straight up the center into all the into Northern Territory where we saw all the Alice Springs and then from there center area straight up.

[00:04:25]>> Then we went straight up to Darwin. Um spent some time around there did Lichfield, Kacadoo, >> Maranka, Catherine.

[00:04:30]>> Yeah, Manaranka. Look at Catherine. We actually ducked from there before going east. We actually ducked back west and did the top of WA. Went to the Gib River Road. We didn't do the whole thing, but we just went to Elquestro. Spent a few days there. casual couple thousand km a >> detour.

[00:04:43]>> Then we shot back across into the Northern Territory and then yeah from there when you have to kind of go south a little bit and then you hit that point where I can't remember where it is but you then shoot east and you can go all the way across the desert and into Queensland and by that stage it was June remember that 1st of June my birthday is when we crossed into Queensland's >> birthday. Um yeah, and then from there we had a house sit organized. Um and then we went into the Cape York trip and so we did a couple of staying around camp.

[00:05:08]>> So a lot of vehicle prep in that area before we headed as north as we could >> here and there and then yeah so did the Cape York trip. Went all the way out to the top did obviously the north point of Australia. Um got the picture of the sign. It was awesome. And then we came back down did the Dry went all the way down that east.

[00:05:21]>> Kind of followed the coast on our way.

[00:05:23]>> Didn't do much outback Queensland. We we stuck to the coast. Um and then yeah through that late late autumn starting to get into until early winter early winter months. Um >> yep had a very wet time in New South Wales on our >> We did do Gary as well before so that's in the bottom of Queensland and then yeah Fraser Island >> um did some of the Blue Mountains. We did shoot through the ACT for like 20 minutes when the highway goes through it.

[00:05:45]>> Yeah.

[00:05:46]>> Um and then yeah did a little bit of Kiosco then went down into Victoria did the South Point and then from there we went to the mountains. By this stage it was kind of like July.

[00:05:55]>> Yeah. So spent some time Yeah. through Victoria. Look, a looking for snow. B, we saw a few of the ski resorts. We didn't film that so much. We went to Mount Hoam, Mount Bullah. Yeah, just that stuff.

[00:06:04]>> Yeah. Um, spent a lot of time on the mountains and had some fun and then obviously got our snow camping uh right towards the end of July/ start of August. That was >> so lucky with that.

[00:06:12]>> Um, yeah. And then from there, we started to head home. We did the Great Ocean Road on the way home, but otherwise we pretty much just beline straight across to get home cuz we had some stuff that we had to be home for.

[00:06:22]So, our route I'd say probably isn't the same as most, but it worked really well for what we wanted to. That's one thing I did want to focus on that if you are planning of Australia, don't get too caught up with everyone telling you what you should do for your own trip. Just work out some things you really want to see in the times of year that you want to see them. For us, Victoria, in the snow, things like that. And then plan your trip according to that. Like, get those big foundations in place and you'll find the rest just kind of links itself together.

[00:06:45]>> Yeah. And remember as well that there's going to be pros and cons to every route. So, the route that we took had some awesome pros, but definitely had some cons as well. So we actually ended up in the top end a little earlier than we liked. So we were still dealing with 40 to 45 degree days and it was ridiculously closures.

[00:06:59]>> A lot of road closures that ended up meaning we couldn't do an Laman. We couldn't do the Tani track cuz we were originally going to do that into the top of WA again and come back across but that was still closed because of the wet season.

[00:07:08]>> Um yeah. So and also different areas are going to be the best at the same time of year. So like you know you can only be on one side of Australia in June. You can't then just shoot across to the other side and then back again. So, you're always going to be it's always a compromise.

[00:07:21]>> So, that is our route in a nutshell. Uh, let us know any questions down below if you have them or any advice on those places we just mentioned. And with that, sorry, my laptop's here referencing what we're planning to talk about in this video.

[00:07:32]>> Some cool spreadsheets.

[00:07:33]>> Yeah. And so, we'll move on to number two.

[00:07:39]So, next up, I thought we'd cover the distance we traveled on our big lamp and also the fuel consumption of our trusty D-Max. So in total for our entire big lap obviously not much of WA but all the other states we traveled over 30,000 kilometers which is pretty crazy >> and a long way >> during that time the average fuel economy for the D-Max for the entire trip for everything we did was between 14 and 15 L per 100 km which I was actually pretty impressed with I reckon all things considered.

[00:08:07]>> Yeah definitely and the dash was definitely way more optimistic.

[00:08:11]>> Oh yeah that is so true. So that's one thing we were doing is actually working out the kilometers we were traveling between service stations. Not all the time, but just to give us a sample every now and then. And we found the dash was always like 1 to 2 L per 100 km more optimistic than was reality. So if it's saying 12 on the dash, it was actually 14. And that was pretty consistent throughout.

[00:08:28]>> Yeah. So we're just aware of that. Um so obviously that fuel consumption um and economy is an average. So that's including everything including all the offroad stuff.

[00:08:36]>> And we did a lot of offroad stuff.

[00:08:38]>> Yeah. I reckon of the 30,000k is probably 10 to 15% was like off-road as in on a four-wheel drive track or on a beach or through the scrub like not on a main road >> tires down off road using more fuel than normal.

[00:08:50]>> Probably in full drive, you know, like um yeah, so definitely that definitely weighed into that economy a lot.

[00:08:56]>> Yeah. And honestly, in general, I think that was actually pretty impressive for our setup. So, I know we weren't towing, but we were weighing 3.4 tons and doing all the tracks you mentioned earlier.

[00:09:05]So, I think for that as an average, I was pretty happy with the trusty D-Max.

[00:09:08]It did us pretty well.

[00:09:14]>> All right, the next section and probably the most interesting and maybe the most controversial, I reckon. Maybe >> um is the cost of our trip. My god. Um our cost and our budget. So, we tracked everything. We've actually got a really groovy spreadsheet here, which you know, we'll probably show you. I don't know.

[00:09:33]you you might see a version online if we decide to release that push the table over. Um but yeah, so we traveled I'm just looking here. We we covered everything from, you know, fuel, campsites, medical stuff, um the vehicle expenses, including >> every single dollar spent on the road was tracked in this >> vehicle transaction. The total number was $50,000.

[00:09:56]>> Yeah. So, as said, that was that's everything uh including insurance on the D-Max as we're traveling as well, servicing costs, the works. That's also including having to pay for our storage unit um because we counted that as part of our lap cost cuz >> yeah, we need that to facilitate our transport.

[00:10:10]>> Of that $50,000, fuel contributed $11,000 to that figure. That was the most expensive portion or category for the entire big lap.

[00:10:18]>> Also, keep in mind we were doing this trip in 2025 when fortunately fuel prices were a lot cheaper than that than they are now. So, we got really lucky in that sense. I'm glad we didn't plan our trip for this year. That would have probably times that by 1.5. Hats off to anyone doing it in 2026. Obviously, fuel was the most expensive one.

[00:10:35]>> We'll run through some other categories.

[00:10:36]>> Next most expensive one, groceries.

[00:10:39]>> This is probably one that surprised us the most. Like fuel you expect to pay a lot with the distances you travel.

[00:10:44]>> Groceries cost us just just under $8,000 for our our lap.

[00:10:49]>> Yeah.

[00:10:49]>> So maybe our taste in grocery product was a little bit more. Like you could probably do that cheaper. That's what I'm trying to say.

[00:10:55]>> One thing that's definitely worth mentioning, Daniel, you're spot on. We do have to buy some specific stuff for me because of my dietary requirements.

[00:11:02]So my like I follow a low FODMAP diet for the most part and so it can be more expensive if I you know buying like a low FODMAP pasta sauce is like two to three times more expensive than a regular pasta sauce and >> you know so there was definitely some stuff there that was just unique to us.

[00:11:16]So definitely our groceries might have been a little more in that area but also probably a little less in others because you know >> we didn't buy too many snack foods. To be honest, by the end we were kind of rationing our food unintentionally. We >> we got pretty efficient and economically a lot of food.

[00:11:32]>> We actually ended up losing quite a bit of weight last year while traveling because we just weren't eating as regular, >> not eating as much and doing more. Like you're living outside, right?

[00:11:39]>> Living outside, you're doing more. But yeah, we actually we cut down on like we didn't have that many snacks and >> yeah, we'll jump through a few more high uh categories here. Next one will be vehicle maintenance, which does include insurance, and that was over $1,000 for our trip. But this category total was just over 4,000, about 4,200, which includes uh major servicing, obviously insurance, even car washing because we spent a lot of money at car washes, which might sound weird.

[00:12:03]>> Probably close to 1,000 bucks to car washes.

[00:12:05]>> I can probably figure that out. It's Yeah, it was quite a lot because when we'd finish our beach runs, uh we just wanted to make sure the whole underside of the car was thoroughly cleaned. And so, yeah, sometimes we'd spend a couple hours just like feeding money into these car washes, but it was worth doing.

[00:12:18]Suppliers was another big one here too, which was things like if we stopped off at Bunnings to buy some tools or Spotlight to buy material to make hangers or uh caddies for our cameras and whatnot.

[00:12:27]>> Yeah, we did pick up some bits and pieces on >> camping supplies and stubby holders is also in this category, which equates to four over $4,000. So, I wonder how much of that was Bianca's stubby holder collection.

[00:12:43]>> Um I count I counted my stubby holders and I think I've bought about 35. I say about 35 cuz I'm pretty sure there's still one hiding somewhere else. Um and I've got a couple everywhere else. But even if they're like $10 each >> and some were more I'm sure >> some more. Some might have been less.

[00:12:59]>> Some of these are fancy ones that you nice nice corrugate.

[00:13:02]>> That was actually yours.

[00:13:03]>> That's technically yours.

[00:13:04]>> A bad example. That's my one.

[00:13:06]>> Anyway, other examples are things like eating out. So this for us included Yeah. Mackers, takeaway, even bakery things. So it's not eating out as in going to a fine dining restaurant. This is just when we spent money on food that wasn't from a grocery store.

[00:13:20]>> Yeah, I don't think we actually went out to dinner. I might want to gone out like twice maybe.

[00:13:25]>> So, those are the large categories. I'll probably chuck up on the screen or in a link down the bottom the rest of them.

[00:13:30]There's some smaller ones, but those are the main chunks. So, I would say in total, we definitely without question spent a lot more money than we expected and what we budgeted for. And we felt like we budgeted pretty conservatively in terms of like we kind of took our original budget, added to that to what we actually expected, and then it still blew that away as well, which is pretty crazy. To the point where we blew through all our savings. We'd both kind of put a bit of savings aside at the start of the trip to help tie us through and top the accounts up. Blew through all that in the first like 3 to four months, I think.

[00:14:00]>> Yeah. By the end of the trip, my savings pretty much gone, which is annoying cuz I'd sold my car at the start before we left and I was like, "Cool, got a chunk of money. hoped I'd come back and buy a car with that. Nope.

[00:14:10]>> Yep. Um, so we literally finished the trip on the credit card to get us home and fuel and stuff, which is on the >> D. It's not something.

[00:14:18]>> It was a surprise. We're not complaining cuz we know these things happen, right?

[00:14:20]It just kind of is is what it is. But definitely would recommend expect it to cost a lot more than you might originally think even when you budgeted for everything.

[00:14:28]>> Yeah. And I mean, we did as well. So, >> yeah. So, that all being said, we were still extremely fortunate as well that we we a had some savings to kind of uh tie us through those tougher times. B obviously we're filming a series for YouTube, which we loved doing as as but as part of that also brings in a little bit of ad revenue as well, which was a massive help. So, thank you for watching our Big Lap series. And we also did have a few companies jump on board to sponsor our big lap as well, which we again was so appreciative of and that definitely made a massive difference.

[00:14:54]>> Yeah. And then obviously the smaller things like Patreon, >> small but else awesome help. So, I guess that kind of wraps up that category.

[00:15:00]Again, let us know if there's anything specific you want to know down below, and we'll move on to the next category.

[00:15:09]So, next up is something we actually got asked a lot on the road, which was how we managed the servicing and maintenance of the vehicle. So, this was done pretty organized, I would say. So, right before we left, I had the biggest service known to man on the D-Max. got every single fluid change, every single filter, everything checked over, everything greased just to make sure that it had the mechanical ticket of approval before we set off. And from that point, we then did two more like services of that same level on the road. So, we'd book it in for its service, and then just say do as much as you possibly can, check everything. So, we know that this vehicle that's literally our home on wheels is going to be okay to continue to do so. So, those services were like$1 to $2,000 each on the road. And we did two of those on the road, obviously, one right before we left. And then I had another one done once we got home. So there was four in total that I would include as part of that big lap.

[00:15:58]>> And think about that. That's four over 12 months. So it's definitely way more regular than what you'd normally do. But that's because you're doing so many more kilometers and hard kilometers on the on that car. So >> yeah. So um for that we essentially just had to try and work out where we were going to be when we were going to roughly tick over that kilometer milestone we had in our head. So it was roughly every 10,000 km we wanted to get those massive services done. That was tough at some points of the trip. Hey, to try and like time that >> especially because you don't know exactly where you're going to be when you're going to be there and but you need to book ahead and so depending on the mechanics um it was also hard to find a mechanic because you don't you we're not locals to the entirety of Australia. So trying to find a mechanic that was >> you know trustworthy and you know had a good review. It got a little tight once where we had a we had a service booked in Darwin and just the way that worked out we got tighter and tighter until all of a sudden we're like crap we need to be in Darwin in like 2 days time and we're like 2,000ks away. So we did two in two days. So >> there was some long driving but that was on the Northern Territory man 130 and those highways just you just cruise. It was great.

[00:17:02]>> Yep. Good visibility, good overtaking if necessary. It was great.

[00:17:05]>> So it was actually cruisy driving days but definitely that was like a oh yep we need to be there and we go move. So that was the servicing side of things. As far as repairs go, we got incredibly lucky with the D-Max in which touchwood. We had no mechanical breakages or issues with that car at all on the road. The engine ran beautifully. The drive line ran beautifully. Everything was fantastic. A few niggles here and there, but none that cost us money in terms of repairs or breakages.

[00:17:32]>> Not mechanically anyway. We definitely had a few cosmetic things like the uh drawer getting stuck and the >> Yeah, it still didn't cost us money, right? So, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So, the water tank developed a hole, which is one of my DIY projects, and that kind of developed a hole because of uh me doing the wrong thing. I over overressurized it. That was able to be fixed on the side of the road with some just like stuff we bought from a hardware store.

[00:17:53]>> We actually did uh a few of these repairs in Bunnings car parks um or just on the side of the road. Just pull up into a car park and just pull your car half apart and fix it.

[00:18:00]>> Yeah. So, the only um real expensive I would say it's not even a repair as such. I suppose it is. We had a few flat tires on the trip, which is to be expected. especially doing 30,000 km and the rough drive shacks that we did do on tires that weren't new at the start of the trip.

[00:18:15]>> We actually knew at the start of the trip. We're like, we'll be lucky to get through the whole trip without getting a new set of tires.

[00:18:20]>> So, I ended up having to purchase four tires in total. Three of those, sorry, two of those were from punctures. One of those was just cuz the tread was really low when we're getting one of the other ones replaced. So, I just did it at the same time. The fourth one was >> on our way home, by the way. It was our last our second last night away from home. It was the last night that we were spending before seeing my family. So, we had one more driving leg, like 8 hour day, >> our last night together on the road um before we got home essentially. And then we were sitting there around the camp table and we're just like reminiscing on the trip, right? And we looked up like, "I've had a few flat tires." And we're glancing. I was like, "What?"

[00:18:53]>> Daniel stopped stalking. I was like, "What's wrong?" He's like, >> "Does that tire look flat to you?" And I was like, "Are we just tired?"

[00:18:59]>> I was like, "There's no there's no way."

[00:19:01]And I checked and it was like it was what, like >> 10 psi or something. So, we're already about to go to bed. So, all I did was like I put the bottle jack under the axle and wound it up to hold. So, there's no weight on that tire.

[00:19:13]>> Then we pumply we pumped it up until about pumped up eight or something.

[00:19:17]>> Then put the jack under.

[00:19:18]>> We're like, we'll see if it goes down overnight, hoping that maybe it's a slow leak and then yeah, we got the next day and it was still in 10.

[00:19:23]>> Got up as flat. So, for that, we just put the spare on and then drove home to get it sorted here cuz we're only like a day away from home. However, that was not a puncture. So, we dropped it off at the tire store to get it cuz we couldn't find it either. Like, where is this puncture? Can't find it anywhere.

[00:19:35]Dropped it off and they called us like 10 minutes later like, "Found the issue.

[00:19:38]Your tire's fine. You've actually cracked the rim."

[00:19:40]>> Y.

[00:19:40]>> So, that was >> not one spot either. Two spots it was cracked.

[00:19:43]>> That was a first for me. We got some footage of it. I'll be playing over the top of this video right now. But that was um actually good news because a rim is cheaper than a tire. So, got the rim replaced. Um so, yeah. So, it was only three tires and one rim, not four tires.

[00:20:01]Next up is actually something we learned while traveling around Australia that became so useful for our travels, which is actually a way of getting parcels delivered to us while we're on the road.

[00:20:09]And Bianca actually was the one to entirely handle that process. I'm not going to be of much help here, so take it away.

[00:20:15]>> Yeah, so um post you might not need it, but for us it was super handy to be able to get stuff from online. you know, like if we needed a part or something, you know, we got like the gas bottle mount.

[00:20:24]We ended up getting that halfway through and other bits and pieces that you just end up buying and it's just easier to get it online than you try to line up with being at a certain shop. Anyway, so we did that, but you need someone to post it to. And all I did was I used the Australia Post app on my phone. Um, and I already have a My Post account for like being at home and I just had that and literally on my phone I've kind of got my account and then all you have to do is you can add parcel collect addresses.

[00:20:51]figure out where there August collection locker there um or placed there and then you just like there's a little map you can choose you can look around where you're going to be and it will have like the little locations that you can choose from. You pick one of those, you select it, you know, you apply that as your parcel collection zone. it will put your name against that, but it will also give you an address. And then when you buy something online, you just put that as the postal address and then it will voila, your post gets delivered there and you can go and pick it up.

[00:21:21]>> And the um delivery window is pretty flexible. Like if it arrived at the postal place and we weren't going to be there for a week, that was never really an issue.

[00:21:27]>> So like I can still see here actually I've got um it even tells you how to use on the on the app. You can hold that up.

[00:21:32]Um it there's like a little like how to use parcel collect. So it does explain it, but you can already see like I had some from Byron Bay and wherever else we were or something.

[00:21:40]>> I'm trying to follow you.

[00:21:41]>> Sorry. Um, so yeah, so I've still got some on here. I probably should remove them, but yeah, we used a lot of those and that was super handy.

[00:21:47]>> Yeah, very handy.

[00:21:53]>> So, next section is about camping spots, uh, specifically whether it was free or paid.

[00:21:58]>> Um, and this was something that surprised us a little bit. uh and in both directions, weirdly enough. Um you'd think that or at least for us, we thought that we would be able to free camp for quite a lot of around Australia uh or more than what we ended up being able to.

[00:22:12]>> You definitely hear about a lot of free like free camping and free camping around Australia, which you can do, but for us, what became pretty clear was in the really nice places or like the the the I call it like the hot spot areas, but there's a massive trade-off where that if there is a free option, it's probably not somewhere you want to spend that much time. And if you wanted to be somewhere close to the stuff you want to see or get some basic amenities, we we paid for it a lot more than we expected to, I think.

[00:22:37]>> Yeah, absolutely. So, I think we ended up I don't know. I'd probably say that we stayed in paid campgrounds more often than we stayed in free campgrounds.

[00:22:46]>> But if you include all the driving on the road when we'd stop like we, you know, if you're doing some longer drives, we'd stay in the roadside stops or the roadside rest areas with like 24 hours. Yeah. Some of those are also awesome. Um, some are not great, but you'd kind of take your will. I think over I would estimate around 50/50 >> including those I think.

[00:23:04]>> Yeah. So um there is definitely some hidden gems around Australia and you will find some epic free camps but >> on average if you're staying somewhere nice chances are if you want to really pearl a camp spot you probably will be paying for it which we were okay in doing. That was an active choice. Like there was free options in a lot of these places but we tended to gravitate towards the paid ones for the areas that were important to us to see because this is a once in a lifetime trip for us. We wanted to try and make the most of it.

[00:23:28]And sometimes that meant paying $ 20 or $30 to stay right in exactly where you want to where you want to stay. There is an outlier to all that information we just said, which is Victoria. Victoria has camping absolutely down patent. I don't know what the reason for it is >> that sorted. So, >> um, we've never seen so much free camping. Some with very basic amenities, which is way more than you get even over here in WA. You get you get nothing for your money.

[00:23:51]>> Like 40 bucks and you get nothing here.

[00:23:53]>> Nothing in WA. And then you get something more for free in Victoria.

[00:23:57]>> So, we thoroughly enjoyed all our camping times in Victoria. Just like the views blow you away. The campsites are huge. They're stunning. They're green.

[00:24:04]There's water for all driving.

[00:24:05]>> You could camp anywhere in Victoria. It was like, if you can camp there, they're like, "Yeah, cool. Go for it. Camp there." You know, and whereas in WA, you would have something that looks like a perfectly good camp spot, but then there's like a gazillion signs like do not camp here. You're not allowed to go, you know, like it's very restricted. And WA is getting worse for that. So, if you're looking to weight your trip more towards the free camping spot, I'd say uh can like put a bit more time into Victoria. But that is our take on paid vers free camping.

[00:24:34]Next up, we thought we'd talk a bit more about our experiences of actually living in a rooftop tent for our lap of Australia, which is actually something we never considered not doing before we set off. It was just always just we're on the same page. We're doing a lap.

[00:24:46]It's going to be in the same setup we spend for a weekender in the bush that we're now going to live out of for our lap around Australia. And it wasn't until people started like actually acting surprised when they heard like you're doing a lap in the rooftop tent like no trailer, no caravan, no nothing.

[00:25:00]And we even at that point we're like, yeah, of course, like what's so random about that?

[00:25:03]>> Yeah. You know, like we don't want to tow a car. We don't want to tow a car.

[00:25:05]We don't want to tow anything behind our car. We want to have that freedom. So, >> yeah. So, for us, that decision really, well, it wasn't really a decision, but what we wanted to be able to do just subconsciously, I suppose, is tackle those four-wheel drive tracks without worrying about a leaving a caravan somewhere or even worse, bringing it up the tracks with you. And we really were grateful for the freedom that did allow for us to like do those beach runs where you're on a four-wheel drive beach track kind of bay hopping for like weeks on end heading through the Flenders doing those Ridgeline four-wheel drive tracks and then camping at the other end doing Cape York. Things like that we wouldn't have been able to do if we were towing.

[00:25:39]>> But that being said, it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows. There is um some good days and bad days with uh living full-time in a rooftop tent. If the weather's great, it's such a nice experience. It's like you're outside all the time with the Rift Type 10 cuz you only really go up to sleep. So, you're cooking outside, you're eating outside, you're um you know, just like getting work done. Everything is done >> outside your vehicle. We had no sidewalls for our awning cuz we couldn't afford them.

[00:26:02]>> The only enclosed space we had other than the tent was inside the car. So, yeah.

[00:26:06]>> Yeah. So, if the weather was good, that was no problem. We actually really enjoyed that. And it makes you feel more, I guess, in touch with nature and all that.

[00:26:12]>> Absolutely. Yeah, it was beautiful.

[00:26:13]>> However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows quite literally. So, if you guys watch the Big Lap series, you'll know that we did camp through some pretty horrendous weather. Some insane cyclonic winds, which I'll use that word and it'll actually be accurate for once.

[00:26:24]>> Once. Yes. Exactly.

[00:26:25]>> Um, insane rain that was coming sideways under the awning. And that definitely did kind of test our um resilience, I suppose, during those times. But that was also a choice, right? We chose the route. We knew we were going to be traveling through some rainy conditions and that it would be right at the end of our trip. So, that was choices we made.

[00:26:42]And there were, I'd say, good and bad days.

[00:26:44]>> Yeah. We essentially we knew that it was going to suck for the last part of our trip in terms of living in a tent. For us, the pros outweighed the cons because we were like, we can deal with living in a scenario for a short amount of time if we then get all the freedom and all the other com pros that we've got all those sucker for punishment.

[00:27:03]>> All the pros that we've got with a tent.

[00:27:05]So, look, I like to say like 10 out of 10 would recommend, but I'm never doing it again. So, >> that's something we've talked about. So I think if we were to be doing another lap of Australia living, you know, for that long of a period of time out of a setup, we probably would prefer to be towing something to do that again to have that nice safe inside space.

[00:27:23]>> Solid walls, >> some solid walls for sure. But for, you know, two to three week trips, even a month or two months long, we are still all for the rooftop tent game. We still love that style of camping, especially if the weather's nice. Like being able to wake up in the morning, open that tent zipper, you're part of the outside world, you know, climb down the ladder and you're living outside. That is definitely our style of camping. just maybe not for months and months and months on end.

[00:27:44]>> Living full time and working full time in that really hard. Um but as Daniel said, shorter trips or if you've got a chance to kind of come home, try everything out, reset it all, and then go again. Like that would make it way easier.

[00:27:55]>> Yeah. One thing I would definitely recommend and something we did for years is get to know your setup first and make sure you are comfortable living in whatever your setup is for a a slightly longer period of time. Like for us, I think the Gibb River Road was really our big test run of >> 16 17 days.

[00:28:10]>> Yeah. like a couple of weeks plus living full-time out of that setup, moving every day, doing the stuff you're going to be doing while traveling, >> learn how to use it all.

[00:28:17]>> Definitely worth doing that to make sure it's going to be comfortable because if you're not comfortable in 2 weeks, you're definitely not going to be comfortable for months and months on end.

[00:28:23]>> If it's annoying you on a twoe trip, it will annoy you to no end when you're living in it full-time.

[00:28:28]>> Yeah.

[00:28:33]>> So, the next one uh that we thought we'd touch on is filming on the road. And I know we've had a lot of questions about this. um >> our full-time job for 2021.

[00:28:41]>> Yeah. So, look, it was a lot. Um we filmed 33 episodes in total. All of those were on average around 30 minutes, give or take. Some a little shorter, but some also longer.

[00:28:53]>> And we released those weekly. So, one episode per week.

[00:28:56]>> I don't think we missed it. So, I was pretty proud of that. We didn't miss a single thing. Sorry, one video per week for the entire trip. Um it was a lot.

[00:29:04]That is a lot of filming to do. If any of you are from a videoing or sorry, video editing content creation background, whatever you want to call it, if you have experience, then you'll know just how much can go into an episode. So, if it's a 30 minute episode, that doesn't mean it only took us, you know, 30 minutes or even an hour or two hours to edit. A 30-minute episode that's the polished final cut usually means that there's been days of editing. And granted, it's going to depend on what style you do, what cameras you use, etc., etc., how you edit. But for us personally, you know, a 30-minute episode is what probably at least three to four days of editing.

[00:29:38]>> It's hard to say. Like it varies a lot, but it's multiple days for every single even a semi-basic episode. So, I think for us, we probably came into this with a lot more knowledge of what this job looks like behind the scenes than most cuz we have been doing this for three or four years before leading on our trip.

[00:29:52]In saying that, it was dramatically different than I think either of us were expecting heading into it because there's something fundamentally different about heading away for a week, capturing that uh as a trip, coming back home, editing it, and then kind of moving on.

[00:30:05]>> On the road, we were essentially doing three things at one time the whole way through. So, we were a experiencing what that week had in store, doing the trip, filming the content. We were planning what we're going to be doing the next week, making any relevant bookings, working out what that was going to include for the story, but we're also then editing what we'd been doing the previous weeks as well. So, that happened on a weekly basis. And all of those things take a fair bit of time to do. One thing that really helped for that and just to make life easier on the road was we learned pretty quickly the best way to handle this was to let one person be in charge of the the director's role, I suppose you'd call it, for that day, >> the photographer, videographer. We would alternate, and you might notice who's watching the episodes, you'll notice like one of us is driving one day and the next person is driving the next day.

[00:30:44]And we always swap that back and forth on our filming days because the person in the passenger seat was the one in charge of getting all those shots, planning what that episode's going to be looking like, making sure we've got all the pieces we need to be able to make that episode as well. And that was a lot easier for us to mentally manage rather than like, all right, you got that shot, what am I going to get? Do I wait, is this overlapping on something you're already doing? So, letting one person be in charge really helped. And we're lucky that we're both interested in that. I was going to say we're lucky we both have the skills, but also even the flavors. So like how I see and plan and decide to film something is going to be quite different to Daniel. So when you're trying to do both in one day, it's like having too many chefs in the kitchen, right? 100%.

[00:31:19]>> So yeah, that's tricky.

[00:31:20]>> So things you you will learn things on the road that make it easier. That was one of them for us. Having the camera set up and ready to go. Dash cam always recording the front. GoPro mounted facing us, always ready to go, >> accessible.

[00:31:31]>> Keeping the cameras in the same place so you're always like, whoever's going to get the camera knows where to reach and grab it. All that stuff makes a big difference.

[00:31:38]>> Um, and also like you kind of just learn to go off the flow. Like um, we end up the best thing we ever had was our little handheld radio, UHF radio to to otherwise you're just giving these weird hand signals like yep go. Cuz you know, you might be like, you know, half a kilometer away.

[00:31:52]>> Um, so stuff like that definitely helped as well. Um, probably last thing I'd mention is something we did touch on earlier, but I thought it's probably worth mentioning in case you just jumped to this section in the video, but we did book Airbnb stays in houses with walls and all this probably every 1 and a half to two months just for two or three nights purely just to get stuck into editing for 10 or 12 hours straight.

[00:32:12]Like we was glued to the computers to get these done. Um, that was probably the only way for us we could actually get like our one episode a week done cuz you can do it when you're camping. you just you can't put as much dedicated time into it and you're more affected by you know rain and wind and whatnot and also um just like trying to find a campsite for the night, right? Whereas here we're in walls uh that it just made it possible for us but that came with its own costs.

[00:32:35]>> It did. So definitely a pro and a con um there and it's and again it's going to depend on your editing style. For us it would take days to edit because we had footage from five or six different cameras to put together. you end up with a lot and so it's just it's a lot of hours of footage to go through and so it's a lot of hours of editing and then add on everything else.

[00:32:53]>> Yeah. So definitely give it a go if you're interested in that. It is very rewarding to do and very satisfying. It just takes a lot of time so just be ready for that I suppose and plan accordingly.

[00:33:02]>> Yeah.

[00:33:07]And last up before we jump into our uh frequently asked questions, I suppose you'd call it, is just a few tips and recommendations. I've just been thinking of as we've been filming this video that might be handy if you're planning a lap around Australia. And first up, we'll start with an app on your phone, which a lot of you probably are already familiar with, but it's the Wiki Camps app. It's a free app on your phone. I think you need to make an account. I think it's free, actually. I'm not sure. I've had it for years.

[00:33:30]>> Might have to pay for it. It might be a subscription now. Either way, if you do, and it's not crazy expensive, it's definitely worth having. Essentially, it will give you a map of Australia with every single campsite, free and paid uh amenity, water fillup points. That was huge for us to know where to fill up water from, >> points of interest. It's got caravan parks, like different it's got >> and you can kind of filter to just see what you are looking for essentially.

[00:33:51]So, we use that a lot. Uh I'll chuck some screenshots on the screen for like finding our campsites as we traveled around because we found that had the most comprehensive range of places we could stay. So, wiki camps definitely one worth having. The second one on that vein is the or do you want to touch on this one? Sorry, I'm just taking your >> No. Oh, yeah. Yeah, hip camps. Um, hip camps as well, probably less so than wiki camps, but still really really good. A good backup. We use hip camps a lot as a backup. Yeah, because when you get to areas, especially like I found in New South Wales, there was less free camping available or just it just felt a little harder to find like a decent camping site. Um, whereas hip camps actually had a lot more. Also, it seemed like more people were, you know, putting up their spots on hip camps and, you know, you could get like a little more secluded sometimes if you're in like someone's paddic or something. And >> that's the thing, like if you're not sure what hip camps is, it's essentially people with their own private land uh renting out part of their back paddic or a spot by a stream that runs through their property. So, yeah, it's people's personal land you're actually staying on.

[00:34:49]>> And so, the amenities vary. Um, you know, some of them had nothing. Some of them were like, you have to be fully self-contained, like bring chemical toilets and stuff. Uh, others would be like, "No, come along." and they'd have like a fire pit with firewood and toilets and showers, you know, they have everything. So, um we got yeah the best beautiful stays um through that, but you do sometimes have to pay a fair premium.

[00:35:09]>> They're usually they're usually a little more expensive. So, >> the next thing I'd say is uh is get yourself an OBD scanner, either a physical one that has a screen that you plug in to read codes or what we used only cost $50 and it was a Bluetooth OBD reader. So, you plug this into that port, connect it to an app on your phone. There is a free app to use. I did pay for the premium version to be able to customize the dashboard >> that like towards the end >> halfway through. So, I wanted a few more um uh access to a few more of the features. So, that is really handy for monitoring what's happening while you're driving along. I had my phone docked up in a cradle just keeping an eye on things like EGTs, when the um the DPF is doing a burn off, just how much load is on the engine, the if the alternator is working, you can watch the voltage.

[00:35:49]There's a lot of things, a lot of parameters that if your car can read it, this scanner should be able to put that onto your phone. You can customize the dashboard to suit your needs. But where it's even more important is if you have any sort of error lights coming up in your dashboard. This can also read those codes, tell you why that code is being thrown, give you some, I guess, point you in the right direction to solving the potential issue or if it's just a glitch, you can clear those codes using that app or a proper OBD scanner to essentially get you out of trouble if you need to. So, we did have the D-Max went into limp mode at one point um due to a uh DPF glitch I want to call it because >> yeah, we ended up like it put it into getting no power on the highway trying to drive along. Pulled over in the middle of nowhere. I was like so cleared the code and that was fine and it's been fine ever since. So, it's just handy having that extra tool in your belt to be able to diagnose, fix uh and potentially fix those issues, but also just keep an eye on your vehicle's uh parameters. Yeah, especially when you are in the middle of nowhere um and your nearest mechanic is >> unaccessible.

[00:36:47]So, yeah, definitely helpful to >> I'll link the one that I use in the description down below. Um >> also, just worth saying that we're not sponsored by any of these, by the way.

[00:36:54]This is all just stuff that we've paid for ourselves and just found super useful. Last thing that we were going to mention is chat to people when you meet them on the road if you want to. You don't have to talk to people, but um we actually got some fantastic recommendations. One of which was actually one of my favorite places in Australia and that was Arcarula. Um, we got that recommendation from some people at Lucky Bay and we were just walking along and they'd seen us with cameras or something like, "Oh, you're traveling around. Are you on the Flenders?" Like, "Yeah, are you doing Ararola?" Which is kind of the northern section.

[00:37:20]>> So, um, massive shout out to them because they were from South Australia and obviously had come across to WA and um, yeah, we chat to them for a good half an hour or so and they gave us so many recommendations, a lot of what we actually hit and one of them was Aarula.

[00:37:32]Uh yeah, and obviously many more around the the country and we don't get to all of them, but it's still it even just gives you stuff to go to next time.

[00:37:39]>> It's just nice to chat to people doing something similar. So I think yeah, it's just it's worth just chatting to people and you'll find people >> in that same environment are all doing something similar. They're all positive.

[00:37:49]They're all just enjoying being outdoors.

[00:37:55]So, now we're just going to run through some questions we got in the comment section on YouTube, through messages on Instagram, through meeting people on the street. Um, just some kind of Yeah, some common threads that emerged in things that people were interested in knowing.

[00:38:07]So, we thought chances are some of you guys might be as well. I think there's like, I don't know, 15 or so questions here. We're just going to rapid fire the answers and kind of get through them pretty quickly.

[00:38:14]>> Um, do you want to read out the first question?

[00:38:16]>> Sure. It was um a pretty good one.

[00:38:18]They're all pretty good. How much time did you take off for the lap or was there no time frame? Ours was somewhat flexible. It was a bit of both. We took one year. So, for work-wise, I mean, we worked with Daniel's business, but for me, I took a full year off. That's because I'm a teacher, though, so I can't really just take some time off.

[00:38:32]So, I ended up taking a full year of leave without pay. So, it wasn't a paid year off. Um, but yeah, so that's what I kind of gave myself.

[00:38:38]>> We didn't leave the very start of the year, like first of January, just cuz there was a lot more to do in terms of getting our current house rented out to have the mortgage taken care of while we're away, getting set up ready. I had been working all the way up through to December and then it was like, you know, you've got December, then you got Daniel's birthdays in December. We got Christmas and New Year's and also, yeah, prepping the car and getting everything.

[00:38:57]So, >> so we ended up leaving, we left in February, midFeb um then we had to be back like our end time constraint was to be back for the Perth 4x4 show cuz we need we really a wanted to be there, but also kind of needed to be as well. And we couldn't just kind of get back and roll straight into the show. So, we wanted to give ourselves a month or so just to >> reestablish ourselves at home here. and also get the car cleaned and ready for that four-wheel drive show. The second question here is how do we do the little map animations that showed our car driving around the map? Super simple.

[00:39:26]It's an app called Travel Boast on your phone. I think it's both Android and iPhone. You just put in where you want to start, where you want to end, and then you can it will just do like a straight line and you just drag the little route around to the route you took. You can pick an icon for your car.

[00:39:38]You can even pick a person or a boat or a plane, all sorts of things. And it will then spit it out in up to 4K quality. So, that was really handy. We use that a lot and it was just a nice way of kind of storytelling uh the journey.

[00:39:48]>> Number three was are sharks an issue when swimming in espirrints? Um this is obviously specific to sprints. Uh look, it's an ocean. Sharks are going to be there anywhere. Um but down on that south coast, yes, sharks can be an issue. You swim at your own risk. And I know that even when we were not in Espirin itself, but just east of Espirans, we were down near a beach and it was actually shark attack. Yeah.

[00:40:09]Wart.

[00:40:10]>> Yeah, Warton's beach. So we probably 10 minutes away.

[00:40:15]>> Um and we got we got our phone started ringing like friends and family were calling like messaging like you guys okay cuz um they they knew where we were and there was a shark attack. It was pretty horrific. Um >> I think that guy lost his life. So that was actually pretty horrible but definitely a shark. Uh I wouldn't say are they an issue as in like it's kind of anywhere you swim on that coast there's a risk. So yes there's definitely a risk. Uh we didn't really swim too much. which we did in Locky Bay Area cuz that's pretty like it's a nice little cove area. But yeah, if you're not sure, just definitely be aware and um >> don't be the only one in the water.

[00:40:45]Number four is what camera gear did you use and why? And this is going to be a pretty exhaustive list. So >> main cameras, we both ran Sony large mirrorless cameras. I was running a Sony A7S3.

[00:40:58]>> Yep. And I was running the Sony A74. Um >> both Sony, so we could kind of interchange lenses. We don't have heaps of lenses. We have two lenses in total.

[00:41:06]So, we're kind of just swapping those two back and forth.

[00:41:08]>> They're both actually Daniels, but I've just claimed one for my camera. So, >> this main one that we're talking to you on now, right now on talking to you on right now is a Sony uh 24 to 70 f/2.8 GM2 lens. Beautiful lens. This is Yeah, it's it's good. Um and we're using the 70 to 200.

[00:41:24]>> Yeah. And that was also a Sony G Master one. Um >> that's our zoom lens essentially.

[00:41:27]>> That is that lens. Wow. So good. We got that for this for that lap and uh it was amazing. So, those are our two main cameras. We've also got a range of other cameras. We've got obviously the >> couple of GoPros.

[00:41:38]>> Yeah, we've got two GoPros. Which ones are they?

[00:41:41]>> Uh they're all the same GoPros. I think we had an 11 and a 12, but honestly the difference is so minimalness. Um so yeah, so two Sony's, two GoPros. We had the dash cam, which was I don't know what your dash cam is.

[00:41:51]>> Uh it's a Uniden 5.1K model. I don't know what the model number is. Our drone is a DJI Mavic 3 Classic. Brilliant drone. Has done so well. I'm only just learning new settings about it now and it's still working well. an amazing drone. And then we also have >> our favorite camera of all, >> the king of them all, is the DJI Osmo Pocket >> Osmo Pocket 3.

[00:42:11]>> The one that has a little gimbal on top.

[00:42:12]It looks like a little little stick like this that drives around.

[00:42:15]>> Had a clip on battery >> battery handle handle as well.

[00:42:19]>> That camera is fantastic. If you're looking into getting into filming on YouTube, that would be my one camera recommendation cuz it can pretty much do it all. Like very good. Um, obviously if you're just holding it handheld, the stabilization is next level. The quality is good. It's not going to match a full fullframe camera like this, but it's probably I would describe it as halfway between a GoPro or an action camera and a mirrorless like this. It sits in the middle, but there's no settings to muck around with. If you don't want there to be, you can set on auto. It does a pretty good job.

[00:42:45]>> Whilst it connects to the microphones, um, extremely compact, phenomenal battery life, and this is where it really excels from small cameras is it actually is decent in low light.

[00:42:55]>> Uh, that's pretty much all our camera gear. And we just basically we only buy stuff to fill a gap or to solve a problem. like we're not the type to like oh let's just splash out and buy something like everything we've bought has been carefully considered based on a problem we needed to solve.

[00:43:08]>> Number five, do you need a permit to fly a drone?

[00:43:11]>> Uh so that really depends on where you are. There are some areas where they're absolute no drone zones. There's some areas where you require permits and there's a lot of areas where it's just okay. So we spent a lot of time doing research to know where we could and couldn't fly a drone. We got it right 95% of the time. There obviously are going to be some great areas here and there, but we just tried to do our best the whole way around Australia, which is why there might be some videos you'll see there's no drone footage or there's very limited drone footage or it seems like all of a sudden there's none at one point in the video cuz we would have entered a no drone zone. So, we just again put a lot of research in before getting to a location to work out a if we could fly a drone and if we couldn't.

[00:43:47]We then had to kind of strategize, all right, how are we going to fill that void in the videos?

[00:43:51]>> And you can apply for permits too in the no fly drone. No fly >> no fly drones. Um but yeah, you just have to be quite proactive about it. So the way we were moving, it was just we were moving way too quick. By the time that permit would be approved, we would have been and gone. So >> yeah, and we did hear that like they very rarely um accept permits from common folk like us just trying to film for the YouTube channel. So we didn't even try.

[00:44:11]>> Yeah.

[00:44:12]>> Next question is, were we doing all the filming and editing ourselves or did we have help? If you're doing it solo, was it hard?

[00:44:19]>> We kind of answered this in a previous section when we were talking about filming on the road. So if you more detailed, go there. But the answer is yes. It's just us. Yes.

[00:44:26]>> It was hard.

[00:44:28]>> Next question is, what app do you use to track your travel routes?

[00:44:32]>> Oh, beyond just apps, we had a lot of solutions for this, didn't we?

[00:44:34]>> We did a few. I think our main one was Google Maps. That's the first thing we do is um Google Maps is the most common one we use.

[00:44:40]>> It's the best one if you have uh internet connect connectivity or your planning in advance.

[00:44:45]>> Yeah. So, obviously because that can give you your time estimates and give you routes and stuff. I'd say don't trust 100% though. It's South Australia.

[00:44:52]Well, how do you say that, Biana?

[00:44:54]>> It's very weird in South Australia, but also in Victoria. It might have been the reason that we ended up down that horrible track. Um, but yeah, that was awesome. And then also the >> we have a HEA mounted to the dashboard in the car. Um, don't love the device itself, but the maps, you can't deny they're probably the most comprehensive mapping solution. They've mapped all those tracks and that was very handy for us, especially if there's no phone reception that could have satellite reception and has everything kind of built in on the physical device. So >> it's basically like having all the paper maps but on a dot device like a massive stack of maps map books you know you can you can actually have it.

[00:45:27]>> So that was brilliant. Even the wiki camps app has some basic mapping functionality although we didn't really use that for navigating A to B. That was more when we're planning and like working out where the campsite is in relation to the traffic.

[00:45:37]>> We kind of used all three actually to try to try to like triangulate.

[00:45:40]Sometimes we weren't 100% sure like if Google Maps is telling us there's a road and it's like that's just bush you know like you know you kind of you kind of cross reference. Yeah those ones. Yeah, those were our core few.

[00:45:50]>> Next up, we have a few D-Max questions.

[00:45:52]So, I'm going to read them and you're going to answer them. Number one, does it have a remap or tune?

[00:45:56]>> It is remapped. Yeah, proper remap done.

[00:45:58]>> Two, do the beeps get annoying? I can answer that. Yes.

[00:46:01]>> D-Max has a lot of beep. So, it has uh sensors that detect things in front of the vehicle which are meant for like, you know, crashing into walls and things. But when you're off-road, picks up all those sticks and shrubs and it goes off all the time. You can turn it off, but you have to be stationary and you often don't think about it until it starts going off. Oh, stop. Turn that setting off.

[00:46:18]>> And if you turn your car off, um, >> it all resets.

[00:46:21]>> It all resets itself.

[00:46:22]>> They did get annoying, but at least with the D-Max, there was the ability to turn those off.

[00:46:25]>> Yeah. Number three, does it have PPF >> paint protection film? No, it does not.

[00:46:30]So, when it was new, Bianca did a full ceramic coat, which kept the paint in pretty good condition. But, we've scratched that paint up pretty badly, not just from the big lap from, but from all our trips previously as well. A lot of those scratches, like 95% of them have then come out with some wizardry from Bianca with her polishing equipment.

[00:46:48]>> Two full paint corrections now cuz I did one a few years after you had gotten it a couple years after you got and you done some extra stuff. Then I did it again when we got back from the big lap and I was actually shocked at how well it came up. But I honestly think PPF is probably a smart way to go if we if we want to do any more traps.

[00:47:03]>> Absolutely. So we'll be looking we'll be looking into that in future for the DMAX and would have liked to have had it for the trip 100%. Yeah.

[00:47:11]>> Next up, something asked quite often was did we do Tasmania as part of our big lap?

[00:47:16]>> No.

[00:47:16]>> No.

[00:47:17]>> Next question.

[00:47:18]>> Um, why the question that follows that though is why not?

[00:47:21]>> We thought about this long and hard.

[00:47:23]>> We did and it came down to two things for me that I remember anyway. One was time. We did only have that one year and obviously less than 12 months by the time you do the pack up and leave home and get back and set up. Yeah. Um, so time-wise it was like it was going to be really tricky to fit all of Australia in and then also Tasmania cuz Tasmania has a lot. Um, the second thing was trying to book that ferry was like in advance.

[00:47:44]>> You have to know exactly when you're going to be there and it was a lot of money.

[00:47:47]>> You've got to book it well in advance, like a year or more in advance. And so that was just way too hard for us to guarantee that we would definitely be there at that time. We didn't want to miss the ferry. We didn't want to waste the money. We didn't want to be feeling stressed through the rest of our lap because we had something we had through the rest.

[00:48:02]>> Yeah. So, at the end of the day, and we also thought about that and we're like, "No, let's just take Tazzy off. We'll do its own dedicated trip."

[00:48:08]>> All right, number 10. Did you run power into your rooftop tent?

[00:48:11]>> No, we did not. So, that was something I did kind of want to do. Uh, in hindsight, it probably wasn't something we really needed.

[00:48:17]>> Keep going.

[00:48:17]>> So, we would just bring a little portable power bank into the tent at night to power things like the little family sometimes ran. Uh, we'd charge our phones up there just using it. And that actually lived in the tent. So, it's seen better days. It's probably um due for an upgrade. It's a lithium battery that's starting to expand. So that um that's not ideal.

[00:48:38]>> Yeah, it's a bit broken now.

[00:48:39]>> Um so that was a sal that was our sorry that was our sal >> So that was our solution for power in the rooftop tent instead of running dedicated power. But I definitely see the value and I kind of wish the tent had like a little Anderson plug to provide power to give us some outlets and run the light. But this was a pretty good solution to get us by and we never really found it too much of a hassle cuz this was huge. We um just charged it up.

[00:49:03]It would do us like a week or so in the tent, >> recharge it and happy days.

[00:49:06]>> Yep.

[00:49:06]>> All righty. Next question was, "What did we do about getting salt water on the D-Max or the setup as a whole?" And this was something that definitely irked us or maybe Bianca more than me.

[00:49:16]>> What did we do? Um, coming from a detailing cars background, it definitely made me want to cry. Look, there were some times where it was inevitable we got salt on the D-Max. One of those times definitely might have been my fault. Maybe more than one. Um, but obviously you don't want to leave salt on your car. However, when you're traveling, it is really hard to figure out what to do. You can't just go home and, you know, give it a massive birthday or do what you normally do. So, I know some people asked, did we have anything like protective coverings on it or coatings on underneath of the car before we left? Um, not really anything out of the ordinary.

[00:49:46]>> Nothing at all. just yeah bog standard underneath.

[00:49:49]>> Yeah. So, nope, we didn't. Yeah, we probably should have. And in hindsight, we probably would do that, but it came down to money, time, resources, and knowledge.

[00:49:57]>> So, our solution on the road was to spend insane amounts of time and money in car washes. So, the first one of those was after our beach run between Esper and Israel Bay. We definitely got some sand and salt and all kinds of contaminants on the car from that. So, just afterwards, we're going through Seduna, less than a week from when the the stuff got on the car. We spent, I think, 60 or 70 dollars at that car wash, maybe even more, and just like so much time spraying water under that entire car.

[00:50:24]>> It was a great car wash, actually. Had really good pressure. But yeah, we we spent a long time just going over everything into every nook and cranny.

[00:50:31]Like literally, I was soaked by the end.

[00:50:32]I was like laying on the ground trying to get underneath the underc carriage and stuff.

[00:50:35]>> So, we were pretty particular with it.

[00:50:37]And when we did expose the D-Max to situations like that, we then would find the best car wash we could, no expense spared, just like tap that card continuously and literally just spray the whole underside down extremely thoroughly. Next up, where did we get the plastic drawers on the kitchen side of our canopy? They're literally just from BigW, I think ours were from. A lot of those general stores, Kmarts, Bunnings, BigW, all sell a slightly different size. So, it's just a matter of um doing some research to find which ones are going to suit your setup. Our particular ones were from BigW.

[00:51:06]>> Yep. How much power did you use on the road with two fridges?

[00:51:11]>> Yeah. So, that's something we do get asked a fair bit and it is something that's very hard to answer because there's so many variables that go into it from the the temperature you're in for how hard your fridges are working, what we happen to be doing. Are we induction cooking? Are we not? Is there solar? Is there not? So, I'd say >> so worth stating before is that the two fridges we were running, one was an upright um >> 115 L upright fridge. Yep.

[00:51:32]>> Dometic one. And then the second one was a I want to say Waco >> 25 L Dometic freezer >> used to be used to wake butt. Yeah. So >> just over there in the garage.

[00:51:42]>> So those were running 24/7 on our trip around Australia. And I'd say just to give you some real loose ballparks, not just power consumption from the fridge, but from everything we were doing. A very power efficient day for us would have been 50 to 60 amp hours used. And that was almost exclusively from those fridges. that. So, we're cooking with gas, uh not charging too much camera gear, and just kind of being lightweight on the power consumption, which does sound like a lot, but when it's your home, >> and when you have some backup food in the freezer and all that, like I think that's probably okay.

[00:52:12]>> I think when the fridges are running, it was around running at like instantaneous was around 5 amp hours.

[00:52:17]>> It draws between four and five. The upright, the little freezer draws between three and four, but they're not cycling continuously, right? So they're going to toggle on and off depending on what the temperature is >> is for the whole day per hour.

[00:52:29]>> That's a pretty efficient day for us.

[00:52:31]The worst case scenario is let's say it's a it's a hot day. Fridge is running flat out. We've got the stylink running for doing our day.

[00:52:37]>> We did a food shop. We chucked a bunch of uploaded or induction cooking. We could actually use over 200 amp hours in a 24-hour period. Granted, our use is probably a bit more extreme than most cuz chances are you're not going to be running Starlink 24/7 normally. you're not going to be charging laptops and running all your camera gear and charging, you know, eight different forms of camera and drone and whatnot.

[00:52:58]So, our usage was probably more than most, but that was kind of our rough range.

[00:53:02]>> I have a follow-up question for you on this as well that I saw some people asking was >> how did our solar cope or help? And I probably should probably should state what solar we had first, like how much solar and then how much was alternator?

[00:53:15]On the rooftop tent, we had 300 W of flexible solar panels stuck down on that rooftop tent, wired into the battery 24/7. So grateful that we had that installed. That was one of the later projects before we set off. Without that, we would have um struggled a lot more, I think. So, the D-Max has a very small factory alternator. I've since upgraded it since being back, but that did limit our charging through the alternator on the road. I think we're only getting like 25 26 amps from that.

[00:53:40]For the first portion of the trip, we had our roof solar wired through the DC/DC charger, not realizing at the time that those charges prioritize one or the other, depending on what you set the priority to. So, if you're driving along and the roof solar is giving you 10 amps, for example, but the the alternator is capable of providing 20, it's going to just ignore the roof solar and prioritize the main uh under the bonnet. So, a friend of mine, I was texting you about it. Um, so thank you again for this advice, James. Uh, he said, "Why don't you run your roof solar through a separate charge controller?

[00:54:09]That way it's completely like you got the DC/DC taking the alternator charge.

[00:54:12]You got your charge controller taking the roof solar both putting those into the battery independently and you're essentially getting two streams of charge at the same time.

[00:54:19]>> That was a game changer.

[00:54:20]>> Did that from that moment on and then we could get up to 40 amps if the conditions were um were really good. So yeah, it was just enough, but we did like there was a few low battery days where we really had to be um careful about how much we were using.

[00:54:32]>> Yeah.

[00:54:32]>> So we've also got a few gear related questions on how certain components of our setup fared over the big lap. We are doing a full review series of the whole setup we used on our trip. Everything from the vehicle itself to we've already done the awning 370 awning, we've done the DIY canopy fit out and some other bits and pieces. So, I'll link a few of those down below and we will get through everything, but I'll probably leave those questions to be answered more thoroughly in that in that review series. So, we'll move on to the very last question, which is probably the best on the list in is how did you deal with fights on the road?

[00:55:02]>> Yeah. Um, believe it or not, we actually get this question quite a lot.

[00:55:04]>> This is all an act now. We're not even together anymore.

[00:55:06]>> Yeah. No. Yeah, we've been broken up. He wants to die. Um, look, we've been together for 13 years now. Yesterday was our 13 year anniversary, guys. He still hasn't proposed. He's useless.

[00:55:17]>> Got to give it a good 15 years just to test the waters and make sure it's all good.

[00:55:20]>> But no, look, it does. It happens, okay?

[00:55:23]You're living this close together constantly every day. Like, of our entire trip, there was only two days where I did not or that we did not have a whole day next to each other. One was when you were in Early Beach and you went on your cruise for the day. The second was when we were in Melbourne and you went to get the car serviced and I was with my mom for a >> trip. Two days for that entire trip.

[00:55:40]>> The entire trip. Otherwise, >> and it's a working trip where you're both essentially colleagues, for lack of a better word, during those very full-on working days, both coexisting.

[00:55:50]>> There were definitely some doozies, not going to lie. There was some quiet road trips uh happening in the middle. And it's especially hard when you're filming because the show must go on >> and so you have to kind of like put that aside and put a face on for camera.

[00:56:03]Well, not even like sometimes we included that in the episodes and became kind of a part of it. So, we tried to kind of bring you guys along for, you know, the goods, the bads, the highs, and the lows.

[00:56:11]>> He's not shutting >> cold air balls.

[00:56:16]>> You're a frustrating person to live with sometimes.

[00:56:20]>> Well, it's not my fault the freezer froze itself.

[00:56:24]the bloody bug is cuz you're the one that doesn't close it properly and then all it takes is for one time for it not to close properly and then it will freeze up where it's supposed to normally seal and then it will never seal properly again. And that is you.

[00:56:35]That's you who does that.

[00:56:36]>> I'll have you know I have been extremely careful shutting it as firm as I can ever since the first time that issue arose. It was not me.

[00:56:44]>> It is you.

[00:56:44]>> It's either you or none of us.

[00:56:46]>> It is you.

[00:56:47]>> Not me. I'm very careful.

[00:56:48]>> I am pedantic about it cuz I get nervous about things defrosting and getting food poisoning. We were just like, "Yeah, keep that shut with this for 6 months."

[00:56:58]>> Longer than that, you'd belly together for like 13 years.

[00:57:01]>> Oh yeah.

[00:57:02]>> Um there were Yeah, there were definitely some low days, but we you just find ways to get get on with it, right? Like >> Yeah. When you have a fight, you have a fight. That's it. You know, um >> the hard thing was if you needed your own time, it's like where you going to get that? So the only really solution we had for this and we got very protective if the other person didn't then provide this to us or Bianca would get annoyed if I didn't provide it to her was she'd go to bed before me and she'd have like you just read a book and just have an hour but sometimes I wanted to go to bed as well as right why are you getting into the tent now >> Daniel was really nice in that he would just be like basically putting a dog house outside >> just sit on my chair >> um but you know I'd be like I'm going to bed that's it and Daniel would just let me you know have an hour before he'd come up to bed >> that that's kind of funny in hindsight I think so with that I I think that's pretty much all our main questions answered and hopefully a lot of information that you guys might have been interested in hearing about our trip. It was phenomenal. If we could wrap it up into one word. Yeah, phenomenal. Um, epic. Everything we um thought it would be and more uh in in a lot of different ways. If you guys do have any follow-up questions, feel free to let us know down below. Message us through Instagram, any of that. We're more than happy to share all the information we can and we'll give you definitely like a raw unfiltered version of whatever you want to know because we know what it's like from the other end of the coin being about to set up on a set off on a trip or trying to plan it out and just wanting to know like what it actually is like.

[00:58:18]>> Yeah. So many unknowns. So don't be afraid to ask um don't be afraid to reach out and ask for help or ask other people for advice, places to go, how to do things. Um I remember asking a lovely old lady how the heck you're supposed to do things in a laundromat the first time cuz I just got to a laundromat and I was like I don't know what I'm doing. Am I supposed do I what what do I do? How do I leave my washing there? What happens if I come back and Yeah. Anyway, so people help you out at that stuff and you learn as you go. Laugh along the way. Take it to come.

[00:58:41]>> No two laps are going to be the same. Uh by a long shot, your needs, wants, and desires and aspirations going to be different to ours or the next person. So try and plan your trip based on what you want to do, not what anyone else wants to do. Take as long as you have. Don't feel like you need to spend a year or a month or whatever. Like, however long you have. Spend what you want to spend.

[00:58:59]Don't be afraid to move on faster than you expect if you have the flexibility to do so. Y the country is your oyster in a way.

[00:59:05]>> Yeah. Don't do things out of obligation or you know if you go there and you think it's going to be one thing and you get there and you're like I'm just not not really feeling this. Leave. Nobody's holding you there.

[00:59:14]>> So with that, let's wrap up this video there. Thank you so much for watching this. Thank you for watching the Big Lap series. If you've tuned in for that or if you haven't, you're welcome to go back and check those episodes out.

[00:59:23]Having now heard about the story, you can now watch the episodes that then form the story. Apologies that it's probably been a really long video and we probably seem to blab on a lot, but there is just so much information and experience that >> Yeah. And I think that's the point for a video like this is I wanted to dive into it thoroughly. So if there is information that we have that you're interested in, it's going to come out in some shape or form. So hopefully you've jumped ahead to the sections that interest you. Uh you watched the whole thing, thank you for staying with us.

[00:59:48]Really appreciate that.

[00:59:50]>> And with that, thank you guys so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next one.

[00:59:53]>> Happy camping.