Camper Trailer Australia Issue 161

The Camper Trailer of the Year 2021 winner is the Ultimate X25 — congratulations to Ultimate Australia! We’d also like to congratulate all of the category winners: • Best Compact Camper: Offtrax Feenix • Best Expedition Camper: Bushwakka Sundowner EVO • Best Value for Money: Bushwakka Sundowner EVO • Best Fold Out Camper: Ultimate X25 • Best Build: Patriot X3 and CUB Drifter II • Biggest X-Factor: Ultimate X25 • Best Hybrid Camper: Offline Domino • Most Innovative Camper: Offline Domino • Best Tray On Camper: Wedgetail Hawk It was an extremely competitive event between our partners in the camper industry, especially with so many entrants and a change from past years where retail price was a factor. You will be able to read what the judges thought over the next two editions of Camper Australia and we hope it helps…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time exploring the remotest regions of Australia, 12V issues are the biggest cause of angst — especially batteries and how best to keep them charged. We fill our rigs and campers with so much electrical gear these days that our alternators can sometimes struggle to produce enough power to keep it all going. This is especially the case with modern vehicles and their ‘smart’ alternators or when travel is so slow and the revs are so low that the alternator just doesn’t cut it. The other problem that often rears its ugly head is with starter batteries. They aren’t designed to handle long stretches of savage corrugations and an extremely hot engine bay, so often drop cells — meaning they will never be…

After two failed attempts, we finally made it to Port Macquarie. Seasoned Camper Trailer of the Year (CTOTY) readers will know that at the last event we had to scramble to Plan B, the Gold Coast, after bushfires ravaged the northern NSW coast. Then there was 2020, so getting to Port Mac this year was both a big win and long overdue. Typically CTOTY happens late in the year, around November, with results out in the early part of the following year. This year was a bit different, with us on site not two weeks after yet another Melbourne lockdown in February this year. But look, none of that matters. What matters is that we again got a worthwhile contingent of entrants, great judges and a process I am confident is…

Every year, we carefully select a team of four judges to attend the REDARC Camper Trailer of the Year event. Firstly, we elect on the basis of experience. That means our judges have been camping and travelling for the bulk of their life and that they’ve established themselves as rigorous reviewers with a wealth of industry knowledge. Secondly, we choose our judging team so that it reflects a range of different approaches, perspectives and industry-specific skill sets. That way, we can achieve a more balanced outcome than would be possible with a single reviewer. Here is a closer look at the four who adjudicated this year: GLENN MARSHALL Glenn has been camping most of his life thanks to adventurous parents, and his passion for exploring Australia never seems to wane. As a…

Judges rate the campers against a set of strict, longstanding criteria. Aside from a few small changes in wording, tightening of criteria and (many years ago now) the addition of extra criteria to give readers a more comprehensive picture, the way reviewers have been assessing campers has remained the same since the inception of Camper magazine. The criteria used at the REDARC Camper Trailer of the Year event are exactly the same as those used by our reviewers throughout the year in our regular Camper issues. Across ten different measures, explained in depth below, the reviewer gives a score out of ten. For the REDARC Camper Trailer of the Year competition, these scores are then added up, to form a score out of 100. All of the four judges’ scores are…

Up until recently, I'd never been to a Camper Trailer of the Year event. I'd witnessed the months of preparation that go on beforehand and scoured the pages of content that detailed each year's entrants in minute detail, but had yet to actually be — for lack of a more diplomatic term — invited along. This year, however, things were a little different. With the shadow of COVID-19 casting its pall over any efforts to plan such an event in advance, I was called in last-minute to lend an extra set of hands behind the scenes. Grunt work, basically — everything from towing trailers loaded with porta-loos to operating as a mobile camera-flash stand. But the prospect of a week in Port Macquarie trumped the idea of another week in the…