Big Lap Gear: What We Actually Use (And What Stayed in the Shed)

Fourteen weeks on the road. Tens of thousands of kilometres. Corrugated tracks, red dirt, creek crossings, and more campsites than I can easily count. Your gear either earns its place or it sits unused taking up space you don’t have.

This is the honest version — not the aspirational “what you should pack” version, but what we actually reach for every day and what we’d buy again if we had to start over.

The Vehicle: 2018 Toyota Prado

Our tow vehicle is a 2018 Toyota Prado. It’s been the right choice for this trip — capable, reliable, and well-supported by mechanics across remote Australia. If you’re doing tracks like the Gibb River Road or anything in the NT, suspension and recovery equipment are not optional extras — they’re part of the kit.

Roof rack: We run a Rhino Rack roof rack with a pull-out sun awning — one of the best quality-of-life additions we made. You can be set up with shade in under a minute, which matters enormously when you’re stopping in 38°C heat with no natural cover. We also have the Rhino shovel holder and Rhino gear box mounted to the rack, keeping recovery tools accessible without digging through the back.

Rear setup: In the back of the Prado we built out a Kings slide-out drawer with stainless steel tabletop — it slides out from the back and gives you a solid prep surface and organised storage. The Dune 4WD 45L Fridge Freezer sits on top. On day trips away from the camper you always have cold drinks on hand, and on long drive days it’s one less thing to think about.

The Caravan: Mars 15 Elite

Our van is a Mars 15 Elite — a 15ft off-road hybrid pop-top that sits between a camper trailer and a full caravan. It’s been faultless. The off-road capability is real, not marketing copy. We’ve taken it on the Jim Jim track and some serious corrugated roads without a rattle or a rattle-induced breakage.

The key selling point: it actually fits in the locations you want to be in. A big box van would’ve forced us off many of the tracks we took. Size matters in remote Australia.

Recovery Gear — Non-Negotiable

Winch — We have a Warn Zeon 10-S mounted on the front bar. Used it properly once on the big lap, but the peace of mind it provides every time you approach an uncertain crossing is worth every dollar. If you’re doing any tracks at all, a winch is not a luxury.

MaxTrax recovery boards — MaxTrax MKII in orange. We’ve used these more than the winch. Sand, soft ground, a slightly-too-steep exit. Get them. Mount them somewhere accessible, not buried under everything else.

Snatch block, bow shackles, tree trunk protector — your winch is only as useful as your recovery kit around it. We run a ARB Recovery Kit in a bag mounted to the bull bar.

Compressor — ARB Twin Motor under the bonnet. Airing down and back up constantly; this gets used nearly every day on unsealed roads.

Power: Solar Setup

We run 300W of rooftop solar panels on the caravan with a 200Ah lithium battery bank. This is the setup we’d recommend to anyone: lithium over AGM, no question. Lithium charges faster, discharges deeper, weighs less, and lasts longer. The upfront cost difference pays back within a single long trip.

Our solar panels are Enerdrive and we’re running their ePower DC2DC charger to top up the battery from the vehicle alternator when we’re driving. The combination means we’ve been off-grid for weeks at a time without any power anxiety.

What we’d add next time: a second solar blanket for flexibility when parked in the shade.

The Camera: DJI Mini 3 Pro

The drone footage from this trip has been extraordinary. We use a DJI Mini 3 Pro — it’s under 249g (no licence required in Australia for sub-250g drones under CASA rules as of 2025), folds down small, and the image quality is genuinely impressive.

If you want to document a lap in a way that does the landscapes justice, a small drone is one of the best investments you can make. Just check CASA’s fly requirements before you go — there are no-fly zones around some national parks and you need to be across the rules.

Day Trips: Dune Cooler Bag

For day trips and picnics away from the camper we use a Dune cooler bag — it keeps snacks and drinks cold for hours without needing power. Easy to throw in the back of the Prado on top of everything else, and the kids have claimed it as theirs. Hazel and James have very strong opinions about what goes in it.

Camp Chairs: The Right Ones Matter

We’ve been through three sets of camp chairs on various trips. The ones that have survived and that we actually want to sit in at the end of a long drive day are Helinox Chair One knockoffs — lightweight aluminium frame, comfortable seat, pack down to nothing.

If you’re doing a long trip, cheap camp chairs are a false economy. They break, they’re uncomfortable, and they take up more room than good ones. The Helinox-style chairs pack into a tube the size of your forearm.

Documentation: GoPro HERO12

For the action stuff — river crossings, track footage, dashcam when we need it — we use a GoPro HERO12 Black. Waterproof, tough, and the image stabilisation has come a long way. We have two mounts: one on the windscreen and one on the bull bar for driving footage.

The media mod and external mic make a significant difference to audio if you’re shooting any video for YouTube or social.

What We Left in the Shed

A few things we packed that never got used:

• The generator — our solar setup made it redundant within two weeks. If you’re going lithium and solar, you probably don’t need a generator for a modern caravan.
• Half our clothes — you wear the same four things on repeat. We could’ve packed a third of what we brought.
• The full-size camp kitchen — we downsized to a compact setup and haven’t missed the big one.
• Multiple gas lanterns — one LED lantern (we use Black Wolf Turbo 300) does the job for less weight and no gas refills.

The One Kit Item We’d Tell Every Family To Get

Fly nets for hats. This sounds like the least exciting gear recommendation possible. I am giving it to you as the person who watched their family get destroyed by flies at Devils Marbles. Fly net hat attachments are $5–15 and will make the difference between enjoying outback Australia and not. Pack them for every person.

Full Kit List (Summary)

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Want to see all our curated gear picks in one place? Browse our Benable list for the full setup.