Pacey's Offgrid Explorer and Custom Fabrication

Busy times lead to more work.
So a bigger, stronger machine will be needed for the up coming years.
The second hand new machine to me is all ready to roll out and earn it keep. With a warn out front cutting edge and back blade work needed to be done.
Cut out the old and weld in the new. 6 new teeth adaptors were also welded on to allow great digging.

Get intouch if u need welding of fab work done

A little bit of work was needed before we headed off for the weekend a Tuff Truck last weekend.
The buggy had some changes done over the time and a new over flow bottle was needed.
With the time ticking I knocked out a small stainless steel bottle that held 500ml of water and welded in stainless buttons for the 1/4 brass fitting. A quick polish and mounted up in the engine bay.
The body panels were also straightened up and a new lick of paint for the clean look. Best of all it came home straight and still looking the part.
Navigator must of done a great job.

So good getting out and enjoying the school holidays with friends and family.

What a weekend. Great company, great food, weather turned it on. Here's to the next adventure....

Merry Christmas to all.

🎄🎄 🎄🎄 🎄🎄

Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

This year we are thankful for the blessings of family and time to stop and enjoy our special people we haven't seen since last December.

We are wishing all our friends a Merry Christmas. And hope you:

🚗 Travel safe on the roads.
🫂 Hug tight.
👂 Listen.
🙌 Appreciate the blessings of a safe place and yummy meals.
🎁 Be present.
⏲️ Enjoy the moments.

Look forward to sharing more of our adventures.

❤️ Big love

Amber, Trent and The Boys.

We have done it and having a cracking good time in our 240volt, gas free custom caravan.

Home is where we park it and you can't get much better than this place. It's been way too long since we have been here.

See you beside the water.

Anther great day out with a few extra friends.

Another great day out, where we leave the van setup at camp and explore the nation park.

Byfield National Park Yeppoon Queensland - 4x4 - Upper Stony - Five Rocks - 9 Mile

Looking forward to jumping on board and wetting a line.

Rainbow Escape Charters! Nannygai, Cod, Amberjack, Grouper Cracking day out filling the box with arm stretchers including some big grouper/cod, amberjack and a lovely Nanny.

What were you doing 12 months ago?

This is where we were on the custom made caravan that where travling in for the last 330 days full time.

While working full time and making progress on the build. Can't wait to start the next one.

The home of the big Mango.

A small video we put together for everyone to enjoy.

Sugar Cane Fire at Burdekin Cane Farm

Our time to watch a cane farm burn.
So good.

Between a few storms in the arvo, we loved our Winton stay and dinosaurs 🦕 experience.

We have had a great time in the Nt.
Qld here we come.
What's your go to places on the Qld coast line.

Another great day out with the travelling families we meet.

A great night out with the family. Big kids can have fun as well.

Last weeks adventure and kicking goals.

Ivanhoes Crossing Kununarra Western Australia

Another great day out exploring.
This is from last week and for some reason it didn't post.
Got to love a little low range action and a great water hole at the end.

We got it done.

THE AFTETMATH OF GRR

Well we made it to the end. I'm so glad we had this adventure and shared it with our beautiful friends Kim and Josh 'd around oz. The Gibb is famous for breaking cars but in our experience we just loved every moment.

What we loved
😍 The ever changing scenery
😍 The amazing travellers we met who happily shared advice and information
😍 The amazing walks
😍 How well all our prepping helped us enjoy the experience.
😍 Camp-fires every night and lots of yummy campfire meals.
😍 All the swimming holes.
😍 The Cockburn Ranges were stunning.

What surprised us.
😲 The many sealed sections
😲 Diesel and water were more easily accessible than we expected. We easily had enough fuel to get from Derby to Barnett Roadhouse to Wyndham/Kununarra. Imintji community store has Diesel.
😲 Water was easily accessible. We got water at Derby, Barnett Roadhouse and Elquestro. Showered every night which was my priority.
😲 How quickly people did the Gibb. I heard a family did it in 2 days!
😲 The graders!!! We saw them on day 2 on the Gibb.
😲 Creeks still to cross
😲 We thought we'd see more carnage on the side of the road. We saw lots of tyres on the second half.
😲 It was relatively clean with minimal rubbish
😲 How quickly we got over corrugations once they got bad (From Kalumburu turn off to Pentecost River).
😲 The corrugations got so bad our wipers kept turning on.

What we disliked

😔 The heat but this made the swimming holes a lovely reward.
😔 The many stations closed for this season meant we missed exploring places like Mornington and Home Valley.
😔 The dust was everywhere but not as bad as Tom Price red dirt.
😔 Reception was so minimal that we would have rathered none.
😔 Toads

Did we lose/break anything?
😟 1 x stainless steel mudflap on the car.

Did we run out of anything?
🥛 Milk lasted 12 days and then we went to Powdered milk. You can buy fresh Milk at Mt Barnett Roadhouse but they were sold out.

Km driven
Just over 1000km

Km walked
50km (the kids walked a few km less)

And the big important question, would we do it again?

YES! In particular, we'd love to do it earlier in the season after the wet.

We have done it and only Elquestro to go.

Time to hit the dirt and dust.

📌 Gibb River Road

The Gibb River Road is located between Derby and Wyndham/Kununarra in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. It is a 660km stretch of road (4x4 trail) that explores what is known as the Kimberley Heartland.

GRR is famous for it's stunning gorges and savage road conditions. The road becomes unsealed just after Windjana Gorge turn off and continues to Elquestro. For an unlucky traveller, the grader hasn't been through lately and the corrugations cause a raucous to the car and caravan. For us though, the grader has nearly finished which is a win for us as it should be smoother but also means we need to look out for sharp rocks that can damage the side wall of a tyre. These road conditions make this road famous, you don't know what you will get, but you will get an adventure.

Cattle is the original purpose for the road. It was built in the 1960s to transport cattle to the ports of Derby and Wyndham. Due to this, the land is shared amongst thousands of cattle from massive cattle stations. The cattle happily roam the region including the roads.

There are a few water points on the Gibb, Inmintji Community and most popular Mt Barnett. We have 140litres of drinking water on board which will get us easily across the Gibb.

Fuel is also something to keep in mind. Signs say Mt Barnett is the first fuel station, 300ks from the beginning, but Inmintji has fuel also. We fueled up at Derby and that will give us about 500ks, plus we have jerry's as back up. This means we can explore the gorges on the roads off the main trail without a concern.

We have brought enough food for nearly 3 weeks and drinking water should last 10days but we will fill up on day 8 at Mt Barnett. We should be able to have quick daily showers each night using our shower tank. We will avoid doing loads of washing at this stage.

We have RACQ Ultra which gives us some reassurance that if there is an issue, we have back up.

We have also shared our travel plans with dates to family so we have people who know where we are each day. Reception isn't great but we have optus mobiles which means we get some reception at the National Parks. The caravan has Telstra which we can use for WiFi calling when we have Telstra reception.

I have written a lot about how we have prepared for the Gibb. Yell out if you have any questions.

DAY 1 OF GIBB RIVER ROAD
🌟 Do any last washing and cleaning.
🌟 Fill water tanks
🌟 Go into Broome Woolies for fresh ingredients.
🌟 Empty Toilets
🌟 Early lunch at 11am
🌟 Fill up fuel.
🚗 Drive from Broome to camp about 2 hours. 150km
🏕 Old Lanji Lanji Crossing.
🥣 Croissant
🥪 salad and ham
🍽 Chicken leg curry with papadums.

A great day out injoying the simple things that happens every day. The tide coming in higher than 9 m allows this to happen.

Doing what we love doing. Sea breeze and an unstoppable view day and night.

This is going to be hard leaving this one. Our sort of camping, injoying the lifestyle and the great places we can take the . Time to make a cake for smoko.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cb8ooJGgOUn/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Watch this reel by pacingourtravels on Instagram •

Throw back to when we got our stickers.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZ2kCMWhQJa/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Watch this reel by pacingourtravels on Instagram •

Another food plan we cook up with the . The joys of been completely solar powered and running all 240 volt appliance off the inverter in a offroad caravan.

A great week of offgrid camping and family time exploring the gorges.

200 days on the road in the Pacey's Offgrid Explorer. The family is loving our adventures on the road.

200 Days on the road for Pacing Our Travels.

A great day out.

Another great day out in Westen Australia.

Making the most of this great sunny day.

Charging the battery system In any carvan or car setup is one of the most important things that needs to be done well. Not only for the good days but also the overcast rainy days.

We have been offgrid for almost 6 months running 240v house hold appliances and not once need shour power to charge the Pacey's Offgrid Explorer and Custom Fabrication .

What's the longest holiday has everyone else been on a completely offgrid lifestyle?