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You’ll have a ball mate , sounds like you’re well prepared to do it , enjoy !

 

Well done Drag, hope you've got room for all of us to 'ride along' with you (vicariously of course).
If you have the time.... hit me up with your expected arrival/departure dates for Perth, and we'll see if we can organise a 'little' get together for coffee with interested forum members from here.

 

Hi Steve let me know about this think i owe him a coffee for some advice he gave me

 

Absolutely love the adventuring abilities of Touaregs. Your photos are very nice especially for those of us who probably will never have a chance to see what you get to see on your adventure.
Looking forward to your posts and photos along the way. From my long adventures I now lack of internet happens, so posts are sporadic. I am sure you will have the same - so post when you can.

Enjoy your long adventure!

 

Hey Drag … thanks for the info. How’s your rear axle weight if you find mind sharing? Cheers.

 

weight on rear axle was 1,545kg with everything at max weights and that will not happen again.
I forgot to add previously but it was expected in the nearly 9,000 kms i have used about 1.8 L of oil.
A common thing with CRCA engines when towing uses not oil in general use.
Funny thing is i have fitted a dipstick and it still reads full and the display says oil has dropped who do i believe ?
I sit on 95 kph at a tad over 1,500 rpm.
Off to Darwin tomorrow.
regards
Drag

 

best to trust your instincts my 7L uses oil will towing a caravan too so i check it regularly and stick to the old saying "just a little bit will do . keep enjoying your trip

 

Enjoy your trip.
Remember if you cannot see any sharks, the salties have eaten them.

 

So have done Leitchfield national park NT today.
Treg running perfectly touch wood off to lake Argyle day after tomorrow then El Questro.
Will post some more photos in coming week.
Just clocked over 10,000kms today since 8/4/24

regards
Drag

 

hermosas fotografias, saludos

 

That looks awesome 👌

 

Fantastic adventure updates and photos!

 

That’s awesome Drag 👍🏻
We’ve toured with a 3,25T van about 65,000km around Australia (45,000km towing).
So much to see. So much fun.
As Steve L said, we’ll be happy to meet for coffee in Perth.
Keep sending the pics and updates.
Brett

 

We have started planning our big lap after 10000 km trouble free trip on the east coast and Tasmania. Crossed paths with many happy Toureg owners. The only complaint I had was the onboard navigation which was too hard to use. Google maps was ok in the cities but was useless when out of coverage even when maps were downloaded. Do you have any tips when in remote areas? Keep up the posts as it is helping working out our itinerary.

 

That's weird. Used google maps a lot in outback oz (with maps downloaded) and never a problem, even in the weirdest of places we could still get a lock and work out where we were. On Android.

 

I use a combination of the Treg's onboard navigation system and MagicEarth on my android phone. I load all of the Australian maps on MagicEarth so they can be seen off-line when out of mobile-data range; that occurred quite often in the outback.

MagicEarth relies on OpenStreetMap maps. They're free and maintained by the public so they're very up to date.

We used MagicEarth to look for things to see in SA, NT and WA; identifed how to get there and then used the Treg's navigator to guide us to the attraction or very close to it. MagicEarth gave us the finer details. It worked well for our central Australia and Western Australia trip.

I hope this helps. Enjoy, we did for seven months last year. East coast this year. 😊

 

For my adventures, I find the Garmin Satellite GPS works great. It mounts to windshield (windscreen) and super easy to use. It was recommended by others and it works great in areas where there is no mobile phone or internet coverage simply because it uses satellites instead. Great investment for adventurers.
it triangulates (off 3 satellites) in most places. But in the Arctic Circle it was only able to grab onto 2 satellite. Yet still worked great!
Now that I am looking at travel trailers (caravans) I am looking at a Garmin that is specifically for RVers. Pretty neat because you enter your vehicle and trailer (or RV size) and it puts forth best route.
I also use an app called iOverlander to locate places to camp rurally and legally.

 

MagicEarth has a Truck setting that is likely to be the same as the RV setting. In the past I've found that navigators need updating from computers, which are a luxury when caravanning. Most smartphones have GPS receivers for positioning, so, in my opinion, buying a navigator, nowadays, is overkill. However, having said that, a Personal Locator Beacon is essential for emergencies.

 

Hi Harry,
We used to use Memory Map which was fantastic, but then they started charging for it.
Now we use Maps.Me which is also fantastic. And we’ve used it all round the world, even on Antarctica !

 

You lucky basta***.....

Have a ball, what a great land we live on!

 

Great photos, looks like your having fun. I’ve got a 21 CR towing Jayco van, towing with the Treg is so effortless. Enjoy your trip. Mike

 

OK have moved on from Jabiru to Darwin then Lake Argyle then Broome WA with a few over night free camps between.
Car was faultless till last night before Broome after doing 700kms for the day when i stopped and applied the park brake up came a brake fault.
I couldn't then release the park brake so i was stuck.
VCDS wouldn't clear the fault so next morning had to climb under the car and manually release both brakes so we could move but 3 fault lights in dash.
Tested and identified the RHS park brake actuator as being faulty, but VCDS said module faulty, now need to find a replacement and fit it while traveling.
Lake Argyle sunset cruise unlike a marine park where they throw fish at the seals, here in Aussie land they throw cold beers at the humans while they float on pool noodles.
Regards
Drag

 

More photos of Broome WA and the WW2 statues and looking out to sea from the harbour.
I didn't even know that Broome was bombed in WW2 like Darwin shows how ignorant i can be !

Next heading south down the WA coast again in 2 days.

regards
Drag

 

Broome is loverly question for you are planning on going to Coral Bay? It is just down from Exmouth. it gets very busy there and there is only two caravan parks there so it can be advisable to book as early as you can. It is only a small place. blink and you will miss it 😎
Cheers Brent

 

Coral Bay is, or was, beautiful. Take some snorkeling gear – you can swim amongst the coral off the beach and huge fish swim decimates from you.

Further down the coast:

Quobba Blowholes are worthwhile – we saw whales breaching, a hundred metres off the coast. We free-stayed in the park just near there.

Personally I didn't think Monkey Mia was worth going to. Although, it was interesting to see a two metre long swordfish type, stingray (there's a name for them but I can't think of it at the moment) just metres from the people standing in the water. I was wondering if there'd be panic if I pointed it out.

Eagle Bluff is worthwhile.

I liked the Hamelin Pool Stromatolites although, the boardwalk was still broken from a cyclone when we were there last year.

At least two days are needed to see Kalbarri National Park. Walking to Nature's Window is crowded but a nice walk.

Hutt Lagoon (pink lake) is worthwhile. There are heaps of pink lagoons but, at the time, Hutt Lagoon was the pinkest.

Lake Thetis allows you to get up close to the Stromatolites, although some massive moron had been waking on them, even though there are plenty of signs saying that it kills the bacteria. Maybe the morons couldn't read.

We stayed at Ellendale Pool for a couple of nights. It was very relaxing swimming there: the water was cold but the air temperature was hot, 30+.

These are just a few things that we looked at. There're thousands of good things to see along that coast. We found most of these using the MagicEarth app.

Good luck and thanks for bringing back my memories of our trip last year. 😃

 

Vcds says park brake module is faulty when you have a failed actuator, replace the actuator and you'll be all good again. You going as far south as Albany?

 

Sorry about your parking brake Drag.
Great to hear the rest. At very low tide at Broome you can walk out to the bombed flying boats from WW2 in the bay.
The alternative to Coral Bay and is Exmouth where you can drive to the Ocean side to snorkel. Our favourite is Oyster Stacks.
We like Shark Bay and there’s a bit to see around there like the abandoned Peron Homestead with an artesian hot tub. Take the Treg out to Peron Point and confuse the hard core 4wd’ers as to how you got there.
the other area we highly recommend is Karajini, that many from the east coast don’t seem to know about. They’re all very surprised. Drive south from Karratha then west from Tom price to Nanutarra. You could also go a bit further south to Mt Augustus and Kennedy Ranges but then it’s a slight backtrack to Exmouth.
Keep posting the fabulous photos and let us know when you’re in Perth.
Brett

 

Sorry about your parking brake Drag.
Great to hear the rest. At very low tide at Broome you can walk out to the bombed flying boats from WW2 in the bay.
The alternative to Coral Bay and is Exmouth where you can drive to the Ocean side to snorkel. Our favourite is Oyster Stacks.
We like Shark Bay and there’s a bit to see around there like the abandoned Peron Homestead with an artesian hot tub. Take the Treg out to Peron Point and confuse the hard core 4wd’ers as to how you got there.
the other area we highly recommend is Karajini, that many from the east coast don’t seem to know about. They’re all very surprised. Drive south from Karratha then west from Tom price to Nanutarra. You could also go a bit further south to Mt Augustus and Kennedy Ranges but then it’s a slight backtrack to Exmouth.
Keep posting the fabulous photos and let us know when you’re in Perth.
Brett

Hi Dragline,
Just want to say thanks for starting this post!
We are towing a 2.8 t van with 2014 V8 Treg and left Central Coast NSW about the same time as you.. but headed in the opposite loop direction. Currently we’re in Esperance for a couple of weeks. Keep posting!
Glenn

 

Great tips in planning our lap. Keep posting.