Kimberley Kampers Karavan 2006 Review

By Malcolm Street

One of the ‘little’ problems about doing some serious offroad exploration in something other than a camper trailer is that the alternative is often a well built, rugged yet heavy offroad caravan.

It’s true there are people who are prepared to tow a 2000kg plus caravan along bush tracks but for those who aren’t, and want something a little more comfortable than a camper trailer, it’s something of a predicament.

Clearly the team at Kimberley Kampers, known for its excellent camper trailer range, has been thinking along those lines because it wasn’t so long ago that something very new and interesting appeared out of the doors of its Ballina, NSW, factory – the Karavan.

Spelling aside, the Karavan is a very innovative unit and, following a request from CW editor Ros Bromwich, we undertook the hardship of a trip to the Kimberley factory on the far north coast of NSW where we met up with Ian Durance, Kimberley’s marketing director.

Ian introduced CW to the Karavan, which in a nutshell is a rising roof camper trailer (complete with shower and toilet) but one with solid walls – no canvas to be seen except for the awning.

It’s no ordinary caravan either and, apart from its offroad abilities, it comes with a hot/cold shower, vacuum toilet, multi-source water system and uses some very interesting technology.

The basis for the Karavan is a chassis and suspension that is a very similar design to that of Kimberley camper trailers, thus using the company’s extensive experience with a proven design.

Ian pointed out on a tour of the factory that the chassis is built to very fine specifications being laser cut and uses interlocked components thus giving good strength while keeping weight down. Hot dipped galvanising is done to keep corrosion to a minimum.

The Karavan rides on independent trailing arm suspension with coil suspension and Monotube shock absorbers. Standard wheels are 15in steel with Wrangler tyres but they can be matched to the tow vehicle.

Hydraulic disc override brakes are standard but an option is to have them operated by a brake controller in the tow vehicle. Other essential features of the chassis are the Treg offroad hitch, the LED tail-lights and the quick drop stabiliser jacks.

For stone protection, Kimberley has developed its Deflecta-Shield system which is fitted to the front and underneath of the trailer.

When folded up for travelling, the Karavan has a travelling height of 7ft (2.2m) and according to Ian Durance, has been designed so that it is a similar length, width, height and has the same wheel track of a vehicle such as a Toyota LandCruiser, thus giving a very good offroad towing package.

There is a fairly comprehensive setup on the drawbar – 4kg gas cylinder, three jerry can holders, snap-up jockey wheel and, unusually, a 19L diesel fuel tank.

The latter is used for supplying the diesel-fired cooktop, diesel-fired hot water heater and, if it is fitted, diesel-fired space heater. Also on the drawbar is a storage bin that holds the toilet VacuFlush unit and trailer battery with space left over for something like a generator.

Finishing off around the outside, in additional to the inside cooktop, there is also a large slide-out gas-fired burner on the nearside, along with a small stainless sink and cold water tap.

Alongside that is an external storage bin which can be accessed from inside and also used for an optional slide-out barbecue.

Construction wise, the Karavan has what Kimberley calls a dual layer construction, with the inner layer being aluminium framed, insulated and aluminium clad. The outer layer is a one-piece fibreglass body that uses sandwich panel construction.

Setting up the Karavan is quite a simple process. Once the Karavan is in position by that pleasant riverbank, the rear stabilisers (which are much longer than a conventional caravan’s) should be lowered and the Karavan unhitched.

The rear door can then be opened up and the fold-out panels lowered into position.

Once the conventional front stabiliser jacks are lowered, the upper body latches can be released and the upper body is raised simply by pressing a switch. It takes about 30 seconds to get into position.

Safety locks ensure the upper body doesn’t lower unexpectedly once in position. The raising mechanism is driven by a Warn winch and in the event of house battery failure, it can be driven from the tow vehicle battery.

The bed can then be slid out into position and secured at the rear of the caravan. If a Bedouin awning is added then that should be fitted into the sail track before the top half is raised, and then fully erected once everything is in position.

When set up the Kimberley does have a slightly odd looking shape but given its modus operandi, there’s not much that can be done about that.

Up the folding steps into the Karavan reveals a simple but effective layout. To the left of the entry door is a small shower/toilet cubicle.

Along the offside from the front is the kitchen bench and at the rear in front of the bed area is a three-person dinette.

Window space is quite generous with three large sliding windows – two on the offside, one on the nearside – plus two smaller sliders in the bedroom area. Extra ventilation is provided by two hatches, one above the shower and one above the kitchen area.

All the cabinet work is timber finished, the benchtops are a granite look laminate and the walls and ceiling are finished in a marine grade velour or a high gloss gel coat finish.

Apart from the Webasto diesel-powered cooktop, the kitchen is relatively conventional. It has a stainless steel sink and drainer, 130L Vitrifrigo 240/12V fridge and microwave.

The fridge can be opened with the Karavan closed up and together with the outside burner and sink, a roadside meal can be put together very quickly. Kitchen storage consists of four drawers (one cutlery) and two cupboards.

The dinette seats, upholstered in simulated leather, have a table that sits between the seats and is stored underneath the bed when not in use. There are storage areas under both lockers, which include seat access from outside on the nearside. Additional storage area is provided by two drawers which are under the bed.

In the bedroom, which has a good ceiling height, the high density foam mattress measures 6ft 7in x 5ft 3in (2m x 1.6m).

As to be expected the shower cubicle is quite small but it does have a flex hose shower and a Dometic VacuFlush loo – the cassette being in the front storage bin and no chemicals are required.

The technology on the Karavan  is almost a subject in itself, and we don’t have enough space to list it all. In the water department, there are two water tanks, a 70L food grade polyethylene tank for drinking water and a 130L stainless steel tank for everything else.

The concept of two tanks is that water is heavy and drinking water might not always be as available as say bore or creek water. The water system has two pumps, one high power model for delivering water to the kitchen, shower and toilet, and the other a low power for pumping drinking water to the two sinks.

The larger pump can also be used for filling the non-drinking water tank from an external source like a creek.

Hot water service is also not quite the traditional arrangement. There are three components – a 4.2kW diesel powered heater (outside the Karavan), buffer tank and a 20L calorifier/hot water tank.

There is a fourth component if an optional space heater is installed. Briefly summarising, it’s a bit like the cooling system of an engine. The diesel heater is in a closed loop with the calorifier, a buffer tank and space heater if fitted.

Water is heated by the diesel and when it passes through the calorifier, it acts like a heat exchanger to heat the water from the water tank or external source that will be used by the shower or sink. When connected to mains power, the water heater also has a 240V element.

Also fired by diesel is the cooktop inside the van. This little bit of new technology has no open flame, instead the diesel burner heats a ceramic plate.

If you are wondering why the Kimberley team have used diesel for their heating source, it’s because they have done some field tests and believe that one 12L tank of diesel is equivalent to about six 4kg cylinders of LPG.

In the electrical department all the light is LED, either downlights or lighting strips and the batteries are two AGM deep cycle 175ah. Both solar panels and generator are an option.

Innovative is probably the best word to describe the Kimberley Karavan. And this is not only because of its design concept, ie, a folding caravan that is reasonably lighter, but also because a number of new ideas and features have been tried out.

Not only is this a fresh approach for the avid deep bush explorer but also one where energy efficiency and self-sustainability has been looked at very carefully. In contemporary times where energy costs are only moving upwards this is a good step forward.

For more information contact Kimberley Kampers, 20-24 Piper Drive, Ballina NSW 2478,

(02) 6686 7344, fax: (02) 6681 3680, www.kimberleykaravans.com

We liked
• A fresh approach to the offroad caravan or camper trailer concept
• Time has been spent getting the Karavan as energy efficient as possible
• Use of new technologies like LED lighting and diesel-fired heating
• The Karavan can be easily used for weekends away or much longer term travel

We would have liked
• It will be interesting to see market acceptance which is already looking good