At last EC28 is ready for delivery

In early July our vehicle was ready for pick up. Since our order the company has moved its manufacturing to Sydney. We packed as much camping gear as we could into containers we could take on the train, and headed off to Sydney, in great excitement. Mark and Susan Fawcett had really put themselves into building our vehicle and it showed in their pride as they presented it to us. Thanks to both of you.

 

We had decided on a dual cab Fuso Canter, 4wd. This was the first camper on a dual cab done by Earthcruiser! The build turned out to be quite a challenge for Mark, but his experience in vehicle building won the day and we have a very nice setup indeed. 

Earthcruiser does a lot of modifications on the base vehicle, including improving the suspension, adding fuel and water tanks, cutting the crawl through, reupholstering the seats, modifying the rear seats to accommodate the crawl through.... And lots more. The camper module is added, along with bull bar, LED light strip, winch, and many more options. 

We have 360 Litres of water storage, 300litres of diesel, and can seat and sleep 7 (including two children). The sleeping arrangements include a roof top tent for visitors. 

The tent is imported by Autohome Australia, from Maggiolina (Italy), and we chose the Columbus model. 

So after lots of instructions on how to manage the various pieces of equipment it was time for us to accept the keys and go! 

Beryl

Earthcruiser!

In December 2012 we settled on the Earthcruiser for our expedition vehicle. Have a look at their web site!

 www.earthcruiser.com.au 

 This was after trialling a troop carrier with pop-top conversion, and hiring motor homes in NZ. 

 The Earthcruiser has some distinct advantages -viz 

 the size of the vehicle is greatly superior to the troop carrier, 

 the Earthcruiser can fit into a shipping container (making intercontinental travel much easier than the alternatives), 

 the Earthcruiser is 4wd (unlike the motorhomes we saw). 

 The Fuso base vehicle is very widely available making repairs and servicing anywhere in the world possible. 

 Earthcruiser has a crawl through access from the camper to the drivers seat - a security feature we think is very desirable in unfamiliar countries! 

 We visited the manufacturing plant in Caboolture, Qld and saw some Earthcruisers and were pleased with quality and attention to detail. 

 So with great excitement we placed our order and began the long wait for delivery.

Beryl Turner

How we got here

We are a retired couple who like to travel and camp. We have a camper trailer and a Landcruiser and we have done a fair bit of outback and remote travel in our time. We have been to the red centre, NT including Kakadu, all of the Eastern states including Tasmania.

We hired a motor home in NZ twice. We have been to Birdsville and Eyre creek, including Big Red (the famous sand dune at the eastern start of the Simpson track.) Joe has driven to the tip of Cape York (I went by boat on that occasion).

The reason I mention all of this is to indicate that we are not complete 4wd novices. And we have done our fair share of roughing it in the bush.

Now we want to do a big trip. This time we will do it with some comfort. We have set our sights on Mongolia, the 'stans, and into Europe.

About a year ago we started to research what vehicle we would need for this trip. We considered taking our current setup. But a canvas tent in a blizzard? Nope! Towing a trailer across unknown streams? Not a great idea. And when we thought about human interference and then bears and Siberian tigers!-no way! 

Beryl Turner