2021 Active Storm Off-Road 19’6FT Caravan Full Set Up Tour (Big Lap Bible Car/Van Review)
Hi Big Lap Bible I'm Jamie my name's Ben and we're from Brisbane and we're travelling with a two-year-old daughter Mia and we're known as @the.fambam.van We've been living in a van full time now for about 13 months the current van we have right now is our 2021 Active Storm off-road Caravan um this isn't the van that we started our travels often originally we had a 2018 Jayco base station Outback which was a really good van but after living in with us for six months with Mia transitioning her from a porticot into a bunk bed we thought it was time to upgrade so um we'll give you a quick look at inside so first things first I gotta have a muck map uh this is the best thing that we've bought I think for the outside of the van um really good for keeping all the gunk out also we do a bit of golf tipping practice which we uh love to do off that which is another really good useful one of those so I'll give you a look at the inside like any bunk bed caravan under 20 feet you're going to have an East to West bed which we didn't mind because our last bed was an east to west expander which is like the tent thing on the outside pretty cold at night not real secure and a horrible mattress this is actually a double between a double and a queen as mattress so it's a decent size really good quality um nice and comfortable for us does this does as well and the best thing about it is we still have this little bit of walking space around the base of it which helps change the sheets because an East West bed sheet changing isn't real isn't real easy we also have this hanging space which is good for shoving a bunch of crafting that you're trying to hide like teddies um and I also it's quite deep so I also have a first aid kit down the bottom of there um over to here this thing we really love this this acts like a bedside table um if it was just couch straight to bed things and you wouldn't have anywhere to put your phone while charging them and things like that uh these little lights here these are really good they they're just good little reading lights they're all throughout the van but also every single one of them has a USB port underneath you so we have plenty of uh devices that we want to charge and whatnot we just plug it into wherever we can keep them out of reach of Mia um down here we have our laundry cabinet uh this is actually our clothesline this little thing here I'll show you that soon um good space to store all of our toilet paper and laundry gear and a whole heap of shoes under there got plenty of storage under the bed there's a compartment under here that we put out do not when we're not using it um extra blankets and spare pillows and things like that I have more storage under the bed this is that Mia's drawer full of her toys and also another draw around the foot of the bed there we have the dining table which is one of those telescopic tables which moves around every which way we're on the handle it's good for us three I mean two adults and the kid is pretty comfortable uh three adults and a kid is a little bit of a squeeze but it does it's fine got plenty of overhead uh storage um this is our electrical cabinet here which has basically all of our controls this is the BM Pro it tells us our battery levels and water levels and all things like that hello and um just all of our little knickknacks and spare keys and things like that up there one of the best things about this van is the big fridge this is a 280-litre fridge and it's a compressor fridge which means it runs constantly off the battery Powers they are a little bit noisy at night but our last van had a three-way fridge and it was horrible off-grid it was great off-grid with the gas but while driving for long distances it didn't really work really well on 12 volts so this thing runs on 12 volts all the time heats the space in it and it even has a night mode that you can click on here to save power can serve a bit of battery power overnight and we also have more storage underneath here with all of our Tupperware and things these are just some flat pack Tupperware we get them from Aldi moving over to the kitchen we have all of our overheads this is our main food compartment got a bunch of these liquor baskets that are all Kmart stuff a spice rack is a big must keep some of our spices and except for that one uh in that place and uh we have a little light switch here for an LED light strip under there while we're cooking which is really handy um this is our other Pantry keep most of the tins and jars things uh we have a full-size oven that all runs on gas which is pretty good we've used it a few times but we tend to try and use the Weber for the most of the things uh just the the standard cooktop one electric three gas little mini Grill one there comes in handy for cheese on toast and whatnot so we have a nice big uh covered full-size cupboard under the sink which fits all of our pots and pans we don't have to play too much Tetris to try and get a lows in plenty of drawers space microwave really comes in handy especially with Mia we do have a generator so we can run it off grid when we want and also another thing we have is an air fryer now we didn't originally have an airfryer but when we got this van and we had the cupboard space for it we got one and it's probably the best thing we've added because uh pot chips when you're off-grid awesome another thing we've added on this van is the dispenser for the dishwashing liquids and soaps and things like that I just get those from Bunnings uh this knife block it looks like they would fall off while you're driving but they actually stay pretty they stay pretty good off grid we usually are off on dirt roads or rough roads we usually put the knives in here because they will fall off then that's just from Ikea moving through to the back we actually have this well basically Mia's bedroom it's like a privacy door good if we put her to bed and we don't have to be quiet then we just go down there and do our thing also we have a concertina door here for privacy for the toilet and shower if you're using the rest of the van one of the main points that we wanted to get while we were upgrading Vans was to have a separate toilet to ensuite and separate shower whereas our last fan was all in one and it was very tight and it did as well but this is definitely a bit of an upgrade so we have the full-size shower in here it's got a good little leg up for when I shave my legs and I've added these these are just from Bunnings this is just this does me uh shampoo conditioner body wash that's all me but this keeps everything out of the way all of Jamie's stuff we've got these baskets that we have one actually usually goes up here um we just recently did some rough road so everything's on the floor at the moment we've got plenty of overhead space here these Kmart baskets Jamie's a pretty good Kmart hacker, so we've gone and got all of these little knickknacks here so it keeps everything tidy in their spot I've had to add the toilet roll holder on um and also I added a wardrobe uh sorry a towel hook um double Tower Hook from Bunnings also in here is our wardrobe so we've got Jamie Ben Mia I just slapped together a couple of little shelves um just a bit of lightweight MDF doesn't have to look good does the job and in here is probably one of my favorite things about this van is a full-size washing machine so this thing is a lifesaver we don't have to spend a whole lot of money doing laundry at all of the Caravan Parks as long as we have power and a water hookup that thing does us really well so moving on to the bunk beds we have two bunk beds this is where Mia sleeps I've had to add in this uh Little Timber rail because she has been known to fall out of bed a few times so she just hits her head on that instead now um plenty of storage under the bed uh we have an access cover to get under there from here but also if you lift the mattress up there's two big hatches to uh get to the main bulk of the stuff we have these little Sirocco fans in here every bed's got one and they're really handy and if you want to get them out of the way they just fold up like that reading Lots as well uh 240 volt power sockets and the uh and the USB port underneath that little reading light there and uh I think that's that's probably it for the outside uh the inside I might move to the outside eh I'll show you how my oh actually here big thing definitely can't live without this is a smart TV didn't come with a van obviously we had to buy this but really good uh for watching Netflix and things like that to keep me entertained with all the cartoons so these are my little clotheslines which our old van we had a big tailgate and I actually screwed a proper clothesline to the back of it didn't want to do that to this van what she sent me has left us a little obstacle so these are just uh Bunnings again little retractable clothesline what I did I'm not sure if you can see that but I just modified the end of it to make sure that it fits inside this track here so I'll just pop that in run them down this end where I'll screw the brackets for the other end and where you go I did have room for a third one here I just never got around to it and never bothered since um the reason I did uh set up like this as opposed to the one that usually runs across the front usually we're parked in a pretty good spot have a nice view you didn't want beach towels enough hanging in the way blocking our views so we just hang them up here best part is for the rains they don't get soaked and wet so that does as well and uh moving on to the front of the van main things I really like about this van is how big the tunnel boot is it's almost double the height of most of the ones that you'll see which are about down here um this is really good heaps of stuff in there I've got all my tools this is a definitely a must can't live without this thing I like to blow the inside of the van out as opposed to sweeping it this thing here used to be the generator slide which is on the toolbox on the front which I'll get to in a minute I'll change it to this as my generator was a little bit too high didn't quite fit with that on so this box just contains all my little knickknacks for barbecuing and whatnot because what I've done is I've actually changed uh this tunnel boot lid I've reinforced a little bit throwing these chains on it with some adjustable hooks on there um that's now my barbecue stand and we uh because we have the gas bayonet already there so I just sit by a baby queue there I've got a little light above there which I click on here and yeah cook away outside of the awning so the Smoke's not pouring in everywhere and it's it works really well also we have a separate tunnel boot light inside there we can light up to see what you're doing because it's uh definitely jam-packed inside there um let me down to the back it's uh this is really handy um to order this van again I would put one up the front there now knowing that I have the barbecue there just to keep be a bit closer for my barbecuing stuff but maybe one day I'll get another one, so this is just the outdoor TV sort of thing we don't really watch TV so we have never used it I use it to store my barbecue Trace it's got the outdoor stereo controls that is the Outdoor stereo foreign I've added this bag see them everywhere and this is just a cheapo it does as well it's got all of our electrical leads hoses and things like that in there but when we do some big National Park stays and we need to take all your own rubbish so I end up pulling all of that out putting in a tunnel boot and fill that bad boy full of rubbish I've added the Jerry can holder on the back I've also put one on the front a Jerry can holder is a must-have because we've done some pretty long drives and can come close to running out of fuel and we have run out of fuel once was only just the other day this is our outdoor mat I used to have this stored in the tunnel boot as well but uh we don't use it all that often especially on one night stopovers and things like tonight we're just at a free camp uh we'll use that if we have a couple of nights at least but it gets a bit dusty on the back but that's fine this is our toilet cassette down here you'll see the reason we have a whole lot of storage inside the van is uh because our batteries are actually stored on the outside good Pro for uh them being on the outside is having more storage inside like underneath the lounge chair you can actually pull the couch chairs out and full storage underneath there which is usually where these would be but on the outside I mean they are a bit prone to uh people stealing them I guess so I've thrown these little padlocks on there just for a bit of a deterrent for that hadn't had any problems yet is our power hookup and our relay switch this is our water fill up I've never used that because underneath here we actually have a fitting at the hose plug straight into and if I want to fill up we have two two 90 liter tanks underneath and if I want to fill up uh the water all I have to do is turn the hose on plug it in and turn that that switch there and that will pump the tanks and fill it from the bottom up and all the air will escape through the Breather up here and also under here, you'll see we have an Anderson plug which is for um an extra solar blanket so we actually have three 120-watt solar panels already on the roof at 360 watts of solar power um but I also have a 200-watt blanket which sometimes we have a bit of Cloudy weather and whatnot I will plug it into there and it will automatically link up through the BM Pro and charge the batteries with 560 Watts then of solar power which does this really well when we have a cloudy couple of days tunnel boot on the other side plenty of room in there throw the barbecue in there for easy access take it around the other side again we got the uh the lights on and off there we have another light on the outside here front and back um 360 degrees of LED lighting we have the toolbox which came with the van we haven't done a whole lot to this event um probably only added the bike rack and the Jerry can hold us I don't think I've unlocked this yet but uh I've got my generator stored in there all of my oils and decreases and soaps and all that sort of stuff now with that um definitely a must-have for us was to have a stone stump by now this stomper was actually made for our previous van um I've had to move the toolbox 100 Bill forwards and add this bracket in um do you want to have a look at that I've had to move the toolbox forward to add this bracket in because our uh our Stone Slumber wasn't quite long enough which has actually worked out well because we've got a little bit of extra storage Rush of a few things behind there our muck mat sits in there really well and that is our corrugated hose for our waste, we've got two nine-kilo gas bottles on board and uh di35 hitch and yeah I think that's pretty much it for the outside of the van I might move on to the car so when we were choosing a tow vehicle it was hands down easy decision uh 200 series Land Cruiser was our number one sort of choice um basically safety was my main concern and comfort and size what we had earlier was a we had the Dual cabute which was uh had the same towing capacity but it's only a little skinny Ute and having a big didn't like the idea of having a big van swinging around the back of it uh telling her what to do so uh but this thing this thing loaded up with all the accessories on it Jamie myself and mirror inside was 3.4 tonne and when you had the 300 kilo ball weight from the van that's up to 3.7 tons so technically the car
weighs more than the van which I like so uh we're not going to get too blown around on the highway um we had to do a lot of upgrades on the car I had to do a gvm upgrade so starting with suspension we went with the Iron Man uh DVM upgrade to 3.8 ton had to change out their wheels and tires get the slightly higher load-rated wheel better looking also for tires we went with the BFG ko2s or their all-terrains I went with them pretty much on the load rating and they have a triple sidewall and we've done over 50 000 K's of these including the Gibb River Road which is actually why everyone's a bit dirty at the moment we haven't ever watched the van yet because there's no point we take it off-road too much but they've handled really well we haven't had a flat yet um we're about to do Cape York so fingers crossed that they are they have another a bit of life left in them moving around to the front of the car I've got a bull bar on definitely for a bit of protection from uh from wildlife and things like that we haven't had any Runnings other than the odd bird strike those suicidal Birds um we've got the Safari Air Max snorkel uh it does the job doesn't look real pretty but it's somewhere to our sgb we've got the UHF aerial I've actually got the long one on there constantly now because that's actually a really good gauge for owning that so 390 on the ground car Parks if that aerial hits we know that will hit so with a sweet moving into the engine bay I've left this thing uh this is a 2018 sorry this is a 2018 200 series Land Cruiser VX model and I've left it seen pretty much dead stock in the running gear wires because this car is still under factory warranty anything I've changed is the air box um The Standard air boxes have a really bad issue with them letting dust through so we've got a good brand FFM custom fabricated air box fully aluminum it's got the you can run the factory filter in there which I've since changed to a Donaldson paper element um we have a dual battery system uh the uh the second battery is located here we have a solar in so again with my 200 watt solar blanket we um if we're running the the fridge in the back of the car for a long period of time we just uh plug the solar blanket in throw it out in the ground or Up on the Roof whatever and let it do it keep the battery nice and charged spotties must have um day and night literally these things we've been doing a bit of uh nighttime driving and when you flick them on it makes the uh the old headlights look a bit like handles hello what are you doing moving on to the inside of the car well actually another thing on the outside we've done uh the 270 awning um we don't use it all that much but the times that we have used it it's been really great uh we've spent a bit of time out at some great national parks on some really nice beaches we'll set up the car for the day leave the van back at Camp um and the best thing about it is it flips all the way out and around covers the tailgate open the boot I have a picnic got your fridge there and all of that and there's and Mia will be sleeping in the back of the car and we can uh have the nice bit of shade over here and another thing we definitely can't live without these snapshades so these things you can buy them online at snapshades here we go get a little these things are really good they've got little magnets on them and you just clip them in there best best thing you can do is uh if Mia wants to have a sleep in the back of the car which is one the window down the snapshade stays in place and also if you're getting a big bit of sun coming in from the side uh usually we just double it up so if me is having a watching a movie or something in the back of the car double the snap Shades up make it nice and dark for her a lot of squint Like Us in the front um another awesome thing that we've definitely must have traveling is a tablet or an iPad anything like that this is just a cheap Samsung one um and this this headrest uh bracket for it is just a little Velcro tab basically and you just stick this thing on and where you go for another look in there moving on to the front uh got the sheets in seat covers a bit of comfort over style I mean these things are already on it when we got the car and uh leather hot seats underneath so I didn't like the idea of sitting on hot seats in the sun travelling around Australia um another thing we put in the car was these 3D floor mats now these things are bloody excellent they're keeping the sand and the mud and dirt they clip in here with the factory clips and uh they're 3D moulded to the floor of the car ultimate protection for the carpet really good for Beach days might bring you around the back of the car now on the other side and show you our boot setup so the first thing you'll notice are the jaw set up and the fridge slide so the fridge uh is mainly just for beers and things like that but if we have any excess bulk milk stock up or bulk foods and stock up on we always throw it in there so we've got the drawers set up here this drawer is basically a junk drawer for Mia it's got all of her knickknacks and things to keep it all tidy this is my draw this is for the car and myself we have all of the knickknacks and uh servicing things that we need for the car I keep all my spare filters and things at the back there we've got the recovery kit in here um I'll just show you when I flip this bridge down we actually have a compressor full-time compressor setup in the boot so that's just an ARB single compressor it does a job a little bit slow when you're trying to pump up eight tires but it's got the six-litre air tank there which really helps out I definitely can't live without that thing there's a lifesaver if I park on the right angles I will get to every single wheel with just this one hose which is really good and my that's where I plug the little hose in there cargo cage at the back there I try to keep as little as I can in the car just for safety reasons and I'm a bit of a neat freak what's that sorry I was just saying that the cool Cabana is really handy as well when we're oh yeah going to beaches and stuff yeah this thing's really good I mean usually if we have the car on the beach we'll flip out the uh the awning instead but Cabana is definitely must-have to take around because the amazing beaches that we've been to where you can't get a car you take that thing a bit heavy throw it over your shoulder it's really good I think that's about it eh so what are the things that we cannot live without that we haven't mentioned so far um I'm not too sure a cold beer I think I've mentioned about everything I think I think the only thing that we would change may be on the car is if we had the weight maybe we'd put a boat on the roof but at the the moment you know we've done most of our lap and uh I don't think is there any use putting it on now um I think you mentioned that we would like to um do a towing tune oh on the car that's another thing yeah maybe once the car's out of warranty I might do it um aftermarket tune on the engine um but other than that it's uh it's pretty well set up for what we need and anything that we haven't mentioned about what Edition did we add I think we added an uh DRS system oh yeah I've forgotten about that, I'm gonna come back around today so if you have a look up on the roof here um this is the only thing that we added from the factory uh this is a DRS system the medic DRS system it's uh it actually has a filter inside up here and a big box on the roof on the outside which actually Rams air down it and uh pressure basically pressurizes the whole cabin of the Caravan and uh eliminates that vacuum suction that pulls all the dust in when you're on dirt roads and uh we haven't blocked a single vent anything we've kept the fridge vent open the doors everything is all been open um and it's driven down plenty of dirt tracks and not had that much dust we've had tiny little bits here and there but uh nothing is covered in a big film of dust which is really good what are you doing yeah I'm not sure how much more we would change inside here I mean it's pretty well get it out for what we need um yeah I think that's pretty much it so that's it guys that's a tour of our car and Van inside and out I hope you enjoyed um yeah and Happy travels thank you thanks guys thank you for a little run-around the inside of it at the moment but off the stand, he should have done
2022-07-19 10:29
