RV FEATURE
Free-camping for extended periods will push your gear to its limits , particularly your caravan ’ s electrical system . To give you an example , we were camped out at Cleaverville , WA , when I noticed our car fridge wasn ’ t working properly . I thought it might have been the battery but it was showing full charge . There was another issue somewhere in the wiring . By systematically tracing back along the wiring , I found a dodgy inline fuse that had deteriorated and was causing resistance in the power . The temporary solution was to simply replace the fuse but a better fix was to re-wire the power with better quality components .
That leads me to my next bit of advice . It ’ s great to have the skills and tools necessary , but if you don ’ t have the spare parts required to fix the issue , all that knowledge is pretty much useless . You don ’ t have to carry enough gear to fill a Bunnings store , but enough to get you out of trouble . An assortment of nuts , bolts and screws , electrical connectors and wiring , some John Guest fittings and thread tape , wire ties , duct tape , and a few other odds and ends will be enough to get you out of trouble in most circumstances .
It ’ s a good idea to keep a few spare John Guest fittings .
HOT TIP :
There ’ s a saying : plan for the worst and hope for the best . When free-camping , we always have a redundancy for all of our vital functions . These include a back-up source of power should our battery system fail , the ability to cook on an open fire should we run out of gas , and we carry a couple of jerry cans to store water should our van ’ s tanks get a leak .
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