Hi From New Member

[Guest Mark]

Hi everybody,

My wife and I have three young boys and currently love our weekends away in our kimberly camper, however we are very interested in the Kedron 'top ender' and if anyone has a set up that has the triple bunk beds. We would love to hear or see any suggested layouts that might suit our needs.

We like to travel off road so I was hoping to get as short a van as possible to allow for better approach and departure angles? any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

hope to see you on the road sometime.

cheers

Mark

[Kimbo]

Hi Mark

Welcome to the group

I'm not aware of anyone within the group that has triple bunks in their van but in saying that Mark and Deb have an enduro "family van'" and from memory they travel with 3 boys in tow and I'm sure Mark will post a reply when he sees this as to what his setup is within his van.

[Guest Mark]

Thanks for the reply.

[dazmit]

Hi Mark

The latest Kedron brochure has a 17'6" internal layout with double bunks running across the back of the van near the door.

This could easily be made into triple bunks as the bottom bunk of the twin layout is approx 400mm off the floor with cupboards underneath. I've seen other van layouts where the bottom bunk is virtually on the floor and this gives room for 3 bunks.

To fit this into a 17'6" layout you won't have a internal shower / toilet but you can use an external shower and a porti potti inside.

Another way to maximise internal space and cupboards is to opt for single beds instead of a double bed. You gain 300mm of bench space etc since 300mm is wasted space to allow you to get around a double bed or you end up with a 300 mm shorter van to have the same living space as a double bed model. Also with single beds you have overhead cupboards running over the length of the bed which you can't have with a double bed and you have lots of external hatches to gain access to under the single beds.

As you can probably tell we have single beds and would have them again if building a new van. We only have 1 son who is 8 so use a big club lounge for his bed / our lounge.

Kedron usually have around 12 vans at the Brisbane show in June and they have put a bunk bed layout in before but you could give them a call at the factory and ask if they will have any this year.

With 3 children it would be easy to add a lot of weight in luggage etc so it might be wise to either keep it fairly short or consider a lighter ATV which is still plenty strong enough to do all the main offroad tracks / roads.

Cheers

Darryl

[glen hadden]

Hi Mark,

I have the exact triple bunker that Darryl mentioned,however i have been informed that the law has now changed and now only available in double format(check this with Kedron).

We are currently at South Ballina in it and can't rave enough about how funtional it is with a young family.I came from a Track camper and wanted something i can drag through the rough if needed and not fall apart.I now have the best of both worlds.

You are welcome at anytime to come and have a look at mine.

Cheers,

Glen Hadden

[Mark n Deb]

Gday Mark its Mark here from the Mark & Deb tribe, Thanks Kimbo for the mention. Mark we have a 17'6 Enduro that has double bunks and we put the table down for our youngest. Our bunks are long ways with the kitchen across the front, with this setup we have a little more bench space for food prep (with 3 kids you definately need the bench space). Kedron dont make the Enduro anymore but we are very happy with it and considering it is the same chassis as the XC of its age the only difference is the 15 inch wheels not 16s. I have had the van off road and no problems at all (the off road was in lowrange and diflock engaged) i find the van is better on dirt than is on Bitumen

[Webby]

Can't add anything to what the guys have already said Mark, but can I suggest that you all upload your layouts to our Photo Album so others can get an idea of what you are talking about.

URL is http://www.kedronownersgroup.com/photos/. There is a special album there called "Kedron Van Layouts"

I know Darryl has his there already. If you need any help, just email them to me at moderator@kedronownersgroup.com and I will upload them for you.

Cheers

[Guest Mark]

:thumbsup: Wow what a great responce, thanks so much to all that responded. Sounds like you are all the type of people we would love to share a BBQ with on our travels.

We got a broucher sent to us the other day that provides the layouts and we are thinking of the ATV (although I like the topenders protection with the bash plate at the back) however from what I can see the ATV seems strong. I am still a little confused as in some info as it mentions 'ATV2' and in other parts of the same broucher it mentions just 'ATV'?

I hve no doubt the best idea would be to go to the Brisbane show in June and have a good look at them there. Thanks so much and we look forward to posting the news that we have ordered one and are taking delivery.

[dazmit]

Hi Mark

With regards to the rear protection bars of the TE it depends where you want to go.

Our intended use was to cover the Gibb River Road, Plenty Hwy, Tanami Track etc and we went for a Cross country with 4" raised chassis like the ATV (back in 2004) , ATV axles and Hyland coupling - ie picked the main bits of a ATV and saved a few thousand dollars by not having a ATV badge.

Last year we took it over a small part of the Gibb, Tamed the Tanami, Made the Mereenie loop road (the roughest of all the roads we went on) and Pounded over the plenty and the van didn't suffer any problems at all and i didn't baby it, I was running 26 psi in the tyres though. :thumbsup:

If you are looking at remote stuff like in the Gall Boys DVD's then bear in mind a bit over 3 tonne of van is a lot to pull through creek banks and the like plus they have a few support vehicles to help pull them through etc. Since we usually travel on our own and don't have support vehicles then we don't go looking for the hard tracks to drag the van through.

Just my 2 bob's worth :biggrin:

cheers

Darryl

[Guest Mark]

Hi Darryl,

Thanks for the reply, sound like good advice. From what we saw in the layouts and what my wife (fiona) wants in the van we are looking at a larger van ( 21 ft or even 22 ft) so I don't think we will be doing what the boys do in the videos. I really am leaning towards getting the van set up to be able to do trips like what you mentioned.

We will have a 200 series toyota and we have tents etc, so if we want to go further off road for a night or two, then as Fi said, we can simply camp and then come back to the van.

The main difference I see between the Topender and the ATV is the ATV has a 6 inch box steel chasie and the topender has two 4 inch boxed steel chasie.

thanks again

cheers Mark :thumbsup:

[dazmit]

Well it looks like you won't have to make a decision between TE or ATV as I don't believe Kedron will build a TE greater than 19'6" internal due to weight issues :smile:

Cheers

Darryl

[Guest barb]

Hi!

Just thought I would let you know there is a 5 berth Kedron for sale on RV point it is not a top ender but thought you might be interested. It might be worth a look and might be of use. Good on you for taking your kids camping when they get older and start to complain ignore them. Our son at 18 in his first year at uni he came home and asked to go camping because that was what he was missing most He said he know he complained but he really he enjoyed it just felt it was the thing to do.

Barbara

[Guest B&T SOON TO BE]

Hi Mark, (from another new member) we too are looking at purchasing a kedron and are making the trip to Brisbane show this weekend and I agree with you the people here seem like really great people just the sort to spend happy hour with. My husband and I are now on our own and looking to upgrade our coromal corvair pop top (not off road) and want to be able to do the sort of trips these guys mention. We have had off road camper trailers before and have done some short trips but nothing of the calibre these guys have done. I have been perusing the sight for a while now and find the information invaluable. Nothing like speaking to the people who have been there done it so to speak. Jan from kedron thinks we would be better with the top ender but from what I have been reading people with ATV's don't appear to be missing out on anything. Still undecided but we will have a look at the kedrons, bushtracker and we did think the phoenix but Steve Gibbs from bushtracker told me on the phone the other day that he was not sure if they would be around much longer. I prefer the look of the kedron and things that I have read and heard make me think the bushtracker could be a bit heavy but we will have do the homework. We have a 100 series turbo diesel and just love it and were going to upgrade but I have been told to hang on to this one a bit longer as I believe the 200 has some issues with weight etc. Looking forward to getting on the road and meeting some of these great people.

Teresa

[Webby]

Strange comment from Gibbsy ?? :shutup:

[Guest Warren & Sue]

Mark,

We have a 19' 6" internal van with Double bunks in the front and have 3 kids we extended the lounge to make it 1.8metres so the 3 child would have plenty of room, we have had this now one year and are very happy with the layout.

you can contact me direct if you require any further information.

Warren And Sue

kids are 14, 11 and 8