One of the questions we get asked the most is “what modifications have we done to our Aussie Swag and what modifications would we recommend”. Fortunately an Aussie Swag camping trailer is pretty great just as it is, the modifications we have done are more along the lines of personal touches. It doesn’t matter what trailer or van you buy we will all add our own little bits and move things slightly to suit our needs. Aussie Swag are continually doing slight changes to their trailers, they listen to feedback from their customers and we have found the after sales service to be excellent.
So the mods we have done are listed below, please note these refer to our Aussie Swag Ultra E and the type of travelling we do, we like quick setup and packups 🙂 .
One of the first things we did was take out the carpet mat and glued thin vinyl to the white floor, get’s rid of the glare from the white floor and we think makes the whole thing easier to clean. Easier said than done though it was rather a tricky job.
We purchased our trailer without a mattress so we could put in the mattress of our choosing. We have tried several options, from innerspring, foam, air bed and overlays. Without going into the long story it has been a challenge to find the right bed. Yep I (Kate) am like the princess and the pea 🙂 . With use the canvas softens, takes up less room and makes it easier to fold the trailer. It means a bit more room can be allocated to the height of the bed. We leave our bed made up, we do not put a table, chairs or anything on top of our bed. We mostly travel without the main awning on as we do a lot of quick one night stops. So this means we have been able to get a more plush higher mattress. We purchased a latex mattress with a zip on memory foam overlay from The Mattress Company at Logan. Our advice with the mattress is think about what you sleep on at home, don’t go for the cheapest, go for what suits you the best. You might be sleeping on this for weeks on end, we all need a good night sleep.
We cut off the little shelf where the inverter sits, above where the poles travel, put the inverter in the closest side bin. This means we can put a couple of small containers there for extra storage and a spare doona or blankets. We use suitcases with the lids cut off in the under bed drawer to put our clothes in to stop things moving around.
Chris built a shoe box that fits on the ledge at the end of the bed, (on top of the batteries) fit’s between the catches of the back door when closed. When we get to camp it gets lifted down and doubles as a nice big step to help get into bed. It has carpet on the top to make sure we don’t slip if we have socks on. It’s fantastic.
We made washing lines that hook onto the bow hooks inside the trailer, head end, middle and back. The back one is great for hanging towels on.
When it’s hot we hang a 240V square fan upside down and hook it onto the middle clothes line and run it off the inverter. Works a treat and cheap.
We put a separate light switch on the pantry, as that normally comes on with the kitchen light. Reason is when you go out west you get lots and lots of bugs. Means we can have the kitchen light on and not have the pantry one on so bugs don’t go in there 🙂 we also changed the kitchen light to an led light. (they now come standard with led lights)
We put a twin water filter on the kitchen. The unit sits flat in the area behind the kitchen. We also have a separate sediment filter that hooks onto the filler hose when we fill up with water. We have had brown water coming out of town taps before after a cyclone. Stops the muck from sitting in your tank.
In the compartment where the hot water and shower is we had a genie slide in there. We took that out and put the genie on the Ute. Chris put in a couple of shelves in that area, one the portable loo travels on, the other is above the loo so we can put towels, mats etc there. So this whole area is our ensuite if you like 🙂 We also changed the head of the shower to a bigger one to give more spread to make it easier to rinse off.
We use some fibreglass flexible tent poles to hold out the back window giving some fresh air and breeze but still keeps the privacy. R clips on the ends to hold them in place.
We have replaced one of the led strip lights that hangs over the kitchen area with a dual white and yellow light to see if it helped with bugs. We think it does and gives a nice ambient light to eat tea with or sit and look at the stars.
We bought a Stone Stomper, this is a mesh sling that sits between the back of the Ute and the trailer running under the drawbar. It protects the front of the trailer, drawbar and wires and stops stones from being thrown up at the back of the Ute. It also helps keep the front of the trailer and drawbar cleaner.
Aussie Swag now have insulation in the kitchen and fridge box, we plan on doing the same. And we think they now have 2x12v sockets on the kitchen side of the trailer, good idea, we will do the same.
Doesn’t matter what you buy, how much you spend, how great the trailer is every now and then some things fail. We had one of the door locks break. Aussie Swag no longer use those locks, they have changed to another make. We replaced all of locks to the new make. Aussie Swag looked after us, even though the trailer was no longer under warranty they replaced the broken lock for free.
We had a pump die, we opted to replace both pumps with slightly bigger ones and quieter ones.
The main battery charger died with 2 weeks left in the warranty period and a week before leaving on a trip. Aussie Swag rushed the replacement through and we got a new one in record time.
Apart from that we have found the trailer to be solid, well built, handles the dust and corrugations well and just tags along behind like a faithful dog.
Now the Ute setup, well that’s another story 🙂