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| At Lorne Station Caravan Park - Lightning Ridge |
Itinerants, other ways called Wayfarers or Nomads are people who chose to live traveling and
working seasonal jobs, like fruit picking, for example. Jobs that
ideally suite those people and their lifestyle, as they like to
“follow the sun” chasing the changing seasons countrywide. And... Australia is unique country
with a lot of space for travel. One can live whole life in this
country and never get bored with traveling her from one end to the
other, being quite a few thousand kilometers.
This requires, of course, appropriate living arrangements.
For short term tents or swags
are frequently used, as they are cheap in comparison with caravan,
easily replaceable and don't require special registration, towing and
other costs. Most of the time it is, though, a caravan or motor-home.
This days the motor-homes are often a veritable road-mansions (for
example: a a huge fifth wheeler, road-home caravans and similar
monsters). Most of the time, though, people are quite happy with just
an old bus, transformed into the motor-home, which is by the way,
often quite a bit more roomy and comfortable than an average single
bedroom flat, with built in wardrobes, and its micro kitchen with
hardly enough room to move in. All such, have, of course appropriate
arrangements with power and gas fitted, and all amenities, in various
arrangements, inside and outside, depending of the size or rather
capacity of the user's pocket.
As in Australia are often visible even very old caravans, fairly cheaply available, with solar installation, big Battery bank on-board and double electric installations, with 12V system (or sometime 24V) alongside with 240V, as the modern power inverters transform the 12V into 240V very efficiently this days, with just a little bit power loss, but saving costs of expensive 12V cable installations, that have to be heavy and thick to be efficient. Today, one can buy solar panels on E-bay very cheap in comparison with the retail pricing – I suspect this days it is so all over the world – and batteries also fall significantly in the price. Therefore, for about 2000 $A is possible to equip caravan, camper-van or motor-home with very efficient power system using nothing but the average household electric appliances, that are a lot cheaper of what one can get in the tourist applications market.
When using the newest LED
globes, where one globe of some 60 to 80 LED's gives more light than
old 100W incandescent globe used to do, one uses some 4W to 5W of
power, DC or AC, as they are available at almost the same price
through e-bay. At the price of 17.95.00 $A, I got 5 of them on e-bay.
This is true, that I had to wait for a few weeks month for the
delivery, but this will serve me well for years to come, and very,
very cheap. The lite spectrum is identical with the traditional
incandescent globe, and they use so little power that I am not
worried to live them on when I leave my caravan for a few hours, as
the lightning give deterrent factor to eventual amateurs of other
people properties. So far works fine with me, and I never
over-drained my batteries.
I use two 105Amper/hours AGM
batteries for my main power use, all up = 210 a/h, for lights. For main lighting I use 5m stripe of
12V warm light LED's, with light spectrum of incandescent globe
agreeable with my eyes, and two 4W/240V LED bulbs (also warm light
spectrum) in both my caravan rooms. AS my caravan had no 12V
installation, having been an oldie but goodie, I installed the LED
strip myself just for lights, and all the rest of my electric needs I realize by using my 1500W-3000W surge inverter, connected to my two
batteries battery bank. I use a fan, lights, laptop, and occasionally
TV to watch movie or two. With 210 a/h power bank, I never run in
trouble with batteries running out of power. And I like often staying
long nights, writing and/or browsing Internet or otherwise working
with my laptop. The laptop uses only 30W f power, though, less then
the LED TV I have. I have separate 100a/h battery dedicated to my 92
litre capacity fridge/freezer working of 12W installation direct from
the battery, with its own 120W solar panel. I use two 120W foldable
solar panels for my main power bank, and so far this is working just
perfect, with enough power for all my needs. So far, I never run out
of power in either my main installation or the fridge set-up.
I cook on camping LPG gas
stove, with inbuilt grill and baking facilities, that I purchased on
E-bay for just 250.00 $A. Cheaper than many other home appliances,
slightly smaller to fit caravans, but just as good, if not even
better and more efficient.
I got inbuilt onto the wall
inside caravan the shower heater working from the same installation
as the stove, but as my caravan is only 16 footer, I decided install
my shower as a quickly demountable installation outside the caravan,
at its wall. Each time I stay camping for more then one day I fit it
there.
Instead of an annex,
troublesome to erect and heavy, too, I use quickly set and folded 3m
* 3m gazebo, which work just as fine, and I paid for it 165.00 $A
together with postage and handling costs, comparing to nearly 2000
dollars needed for the roll out annex, or just slightly less for the
traditional one, with all its troublesome fittings, etc. Gazebo
appeared to be light, very quickly set by just one person, and just
as quickly demountable at moving.
I have small 850W
inverter/generator, for the heavier electric jobs, like using the
small, old type washing machine, and/or some other electric tools
when I rarely need it. I used it only twice in nearly 4 years for
recharging my battery bank, as it was for over two weeks very cloudy
and raining. The generator used just 2.1 litres of petrol (the tank
capacity) for nearly 7 hours of uninterrupted running to power
battery charger, fridge and all my computer and all light. In running
just my computer and later TV with lights on, I run it ones for
almost 9 hours on its 2.1 litre petrol tank. This is quite cheap I
reckon. Besides this, I use my genie very rare, occasionally when I
do some work with my power tools, and when I need to do washing when
far from any locally available laundry, and which is not so very
often.
After calculations, that what
I had had to spend in power and gas costs while on the Grid, living
in the City in one year – and with very heavy saving on using the
power and gas - covered easily all my installation costs with none
caring any more on saving on power or gas, and still started saving
me money in less than one year. Of course. I did all installation
myself, as electricians tend to charge quite a lot, and it is just a
very basic installation, easy to make by anyone.
As a final outcome, I landed
up with old, but comfortable caravan with all amenities that I feared
to use while living in the city, but having no more problems now, and
living practically a lot more comfortable, with less worries and
problems, healthier and a lot happier. And I think, the life is worth
it, even if sometime, it can be a bit less comfortable otherwise.
Just different lifestyle, but in overall a lot healthier and more
enjoyable.
