Classic caravan rig cooks up a storm

There are quite a few 'travelling cooks', but few get around in as head-turning a set-up as a 1962 'split screen' Kombi, hitched up to a fibreglass Franklin caravan from the same era.

Kirianna Poole, the author of the soon to be released 'The Slow Road Cookbook', has spent five years travelling and camping through Australia and New Zealand with her husband and three children in the vintage rig and says she enjoys cooking as "it brings people together".

“Travelling slowly lends itself to a lifestyle of eating slowly," she says. "On the road, I’ve found that sharing meals is an excellent way to connect with others, maybe via lunch with friends, or even when buying ingredients from local growers."

Life travels slowly in an old campervan, and for Kirianna, that means lots of time to dream up simple, hearty food that’s perfect for life on the road. Schooled in her Dad’s restaurants and inspired by a slow-paced life, she knows that good food is the foundation of wholesome family adventures.

The 'slow road' family is currently travelling around New Zealand and sharing their cooking and adventures with 170,000 Instagram followers. However, their global travels will soon be taking the family (including their Kombi and caravan) to Japan, a country where Kirianna has previously lived for six years.

“Travelling slowly lends itself to a lifestyle of eating slowly”, she says. “Australia is a wonderland for passionate cooks, where sustainable seafood, grass-fed beef and spring lamb are easy to get. There’s plenty of space for foraging and heaps of roadside stalls with fresh fruit and veg scattered around the countryside.”

Forget two-minute noodles; The Slow Road Cookbook is filled with the meals she grew up with in a Maori family in New Zealand, flavours she’s savoured around the world, and camping classics born in the Aussie bush. There are over 80 recipes, with chapters covering meat, chicken, seafood, desserts, breakfasts, and even some Happy Hour cocktails.

“On long drives, I would spend hours dreaming up recipes, then bring them to life when we camped that night," she explains. "Slow became an ideology of how I think about our food, summed up in the words seasonal, local, organic and whole (SLOW)."

How long did the renovations take and what were the challenges?

We found Izzie (a 1962 split screen) six years ago in Western Australia. We bought her and shipped her over to the east coast where we did a fit-out and set off around Australia with our son who was just two at the time.

Izzie has now gone through three stages. Initially, the three of us slept inside on the double rock-and-roll bed. When our little girl Alba arrived we built a custom annex that attached to the side of the Kombi and set off on our second lap of Australia sleeping on airbeds.

When our third little girl arrived in the world, we started looking for caravans to continue our journey and also to tackle New Zealand. We needed something light and preferably from the same era and that’s when by chance we stumbled across Bella a 1964 Franklin fibreglass caravan down the bottom of Western Australia.

She needed a lot of work but she was super light and perfect, so we shipped her off to the east coast and Lockie began the restoration and fit out which took about four months full-time. There was a lot more work involved than we initially anticipated once we started stripping her back.

What upgrades or additions have been made to the vehicles? 

During the first few years around Australia we did very little. But once we added the caravan we upgraded a lot of parts on the Kombi to enable her to tow. Although the caravan is fibreglass and very light safety is always our main priority, so we wanted to get it right from the start.

We replaced the Kombi's 1641cc engine with a custom-built 2.1-litre with dual 44IDF Weber carburettors. We then upgraded the gearbox to a '76 Superbug single side plate box and IRS suspension and added disc brakes and an autocraft engineering towbar.

For the caravan, we stripped it entirely and focused heavily on building a nice kitchen with everything I needed for cooking and living on the road full-time. We added a 110-litre Dometic fridge, Dometic gas burners, a big sink that doubles as a bath for the baby and a 10kWh Ecoflow power system which enables us to go off the grid for 5-7 days at a time without having to worry about power. We also added electric brakes to the caravan and brake controller to the kombi for safety.

Why did you fall in love with the Kombi and the caravan?

We have always been Kombi obsessed. There’s something so satisfying about travelling in such a simplistic set-up like our grandparents would have done years ago. We have realised how little we need, and enjoy the challenges that come with travelling with older vehicles. It’s not for everyone and at times I’m not going to lie it’s extremely tough, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Are there any other reasons you choose to travel in such unique vehicles?

We are drawn to the ‘60s era when life was a lot simpler and people lived with far fewer things. It's a slower-paced style of life and one that we love to embrace and show our kids how little you need to be happy. An old bus and little caravan with nothing but a big adventure ahead...

Where are some of the best places you’ve been with the Kombi and/or caravan?

There are so many incredible spots we have seen in both Australia and New Zealand and it is hard to choose but some of our favourites in Australia are Bruny Island, Tasmania, Esperance, The Kimberley, Uluru, Magnetic Island, and in New Zealand, Milford Sound, Mt Cook and Waiheke Island.

We are currently in New Zealand until November then we're shipping the Kombi and caravan to Japan until next April, and then we are off to travel through Europe for the summer next year.

How do you deal with breakdowns?

What is special about Kombis is that most people love them, or have an old story about their personal time with one, so when we break down we often find some really awesome people willing to help.

Lockie does all the work on Izzie and generally he can have her running on the side of the road quickly. When we're in need of a part, we will almost always make it to a town to park up and wait. We have now broken down far more times than we can count but it is something that we embrace now as we have met some of the most amazing people and had some incredible experiences that we otherwise would have missed.