Land Rover Explorer, Land Rover Camping, Tents, Green Lanes and Video » Landrover Gear

“Wild Canvas” Australian Swags

kevin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:59:26 +0000

These are just in: Wild Canvas Australian Swags! Based on authentic Australian swag designs and years of experience camping in swags, Wild Canvas, makers of tents, yurts and canvas products have begun producing these for sale in the UK & Europe – as far as I know they are the only Australian swags available to buy in Europe.

For more details see this full post here on Path Of The Paddle.co.uk

Or more background on swag camping with your Land Rover here:

Camel Trophy Defender… (the small version)

kevin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:36:32 +0000

This is awesome – a video of a somewhat smaller-than-life Camel Trophy Defender going ‘off road’! Really well filmed and looks the business – if only I was 5 inches tall I’d want to drive it!

Series Land Rover Auxilliary Dash Panel Kit

kevin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:01:16 +0000

Made by www.classiclandrover.co.uk these panels are a great solution for adding extra dials to any Series Land Rover interior – the makers supply a range of fittings and shapes for all Series vehicles. The new LRE 109 Series III truck cab badly needed tidying up inside, as previous owners had added more dials and wires were everywhere. The panels proved very easy to fit, with clear instructions and are beautifully finished, once installed they looked like OEM parts – with a really original look, they fitted in ingeniously using the original wings from the centre unit, to create this very useful centre dash console. Here’s how they went in and the finished result.

…

The new LRE 109 Truck Cab Series III standing in the sunshine.

Land Rover wings make a working flat surface as always...

The panel kit comes nicely packaged in bubble wrap with full instructions.

The starting point. This centre console is about to be replaced by the new kit.

Removing the dials.

Unscrewing the existing console which supports only a couple of cigar lighter sockets.

Removing the centre piece

This shows where the two wings are joined, and where the new panel kits integrates.

removing random bits of old dash architecture...

the shiny new panels are out of the bag...

Fitting the back plate.

Then the new front plate fits to the two side wings of the original Land Rover centre console.

Creating this fantastic fitment with four new spaces for dials and sockets, all facing forward, and nice and high up on the dash.

A screwdriver was all that was needed to fit the new console.

Looking good...!

It's a piece of genius how these panels fit with the existing system - a really well thought out and beautifully elegant solution.

Starting to take shape and looking just great!

Adding more dials.

The positioning gives really good visibility.

The new auxiliary dash panels kit fully installed - it looks like OEM equipment! Just need to clean up my cab now, and polish everything up around this new centre console. The 109 is re-born (on the inside anyway).

Remote Control Defender!

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:31:25 +0000

This is fantastic: a model Defender 90 performing some serious off road manouvres!

Land Rover Toys & Models

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:43:05 +0000

There’s an amazing range of tiny Land Rover toys and models around, testimony to the popularity of Landys, for kids and grown-ups, and grown-up kids of course!

Remote Control Land Rover Toys

kevin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:53:39 +0000

There’s lots of Land Rover Model Toys around, but if you want to actually drive a toy Land Rover, instead of taking years developing a shrinking potion, try one of these remote control Land Rovers in your garden. Fun for kids before they’re old enough to drive a real Land Rover, and for the grown-up kids, set up an off road course for your remote control Land Rover in your garden!

Land Rover Haynes Manuals

kevin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:06:01 +0000

Amazon is a good place to find the Haynes Workshop manuals you need. They stock both new and used books via the amazon marketplace. Here’s a selection of what’s in thier catalogue currently.

Land Rover Camping: Safari Tent…

kevin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:44:08 +0000

The options for Land Rover Camping are endless of course, but a few designs are of special interest:

The OzTent from http://uk.oztent.com…

The OZ Tent - collapsible framed tent

the CaranEx… (see ukcampsite.co.uk/tents/ )

The CaranEx as Land Rover Tent - shown with Defender 110 CSW

and of course Roof Tents:

Australian Land Rover Roof Tent

There’s a new option from specialist tent, tipi and tarp manufacturer “Green Outdoor” called the “Campfire Tent”. It has some advantages over the Oztent (won’t fit in a 90 when folded down at 2M – won’t even fit on most 90 roofracks except diagonally which takes up a lot of space) and the CaranEx (lacking in features and still fairly expensive) and Roof Tent (hugely expensive and can’t be used as free-standing tents, also they take up all the roofrack space generally. I’ve been testing the Green outdoor offering and am enormously impressed – at £499 (currently on sale) it’s well worth looking at as it makes a fantastic Land rover tent as well as a perfect “safari-style” free standing tent. You can even pitch it in front of the campfire (hence the name) and have the heat reflect around the tent for maximium warmth as well as that true “fireside” experience.

The front opens out to give you wide open views of whatever country you’ve driven so hard to get to, whether it be Morrocan mountains, the African Savanna or the Welsh hills. The tent is very well featured in terms of doors, windows, full mozzie netting, full inner tent, as well as a modular design in terms of side wings, front awning etc. On top of that, and the killer feature for me is that it’s cleverly made out of natural materials – Chinese Hemp Cotton canvas specifically, in a beautiful soft brown colour that at the same time both stands out and blends in with Nature. The material is also waterproofed so the canvas can remain thinner than traditional cotton canvas, and therefore it’s doesn’t have that heavy weight, especially when wet that puts so many people off canvas traditional tents. But it retains the look (and feel, and even the sound) of classic “safari tents” of old, and that really adds something to the experience when you’re out in the bush.

Here’s some pictures of the tent set up with my Land Rover 110 HCPU, where it fits perfectly at the rear of the vehicle, allowing easy access through rear, with use of the tailgate for kitchen duties, and yet you can drive off easily and close the front of the tent up, or move the vehicle during the day and shelter form either the sun or rain under the big awning. Side doors and wings zip on or off easily making it very flexible. You can of course put the tent side-on to the vehicle as well.

I’ll be using this set up a lot now as it’s proved perhaps the perfect 4×4 tent, with some real advantages over the other options, and at a very reasonable price you get something unusual, fit for purpose and really a thing of great beauty, as well as a solid piece of gear that will last a lifetime or close to hopefully. So, in short, I’m impressed!

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The Tent with one side-wing zipped off, showing the inner tent and mozzie net etc.

The side wing left on, with the side door and mozzie net zipped open.

The side doors also have a ventilation flap which can be opened slightly for air, OR rolled up as a full window - very nice feature and the attention to detail is very high, as is the manufacturing quality.

A view into the interior space and inner tent.

Tailgate Kitchen!!

The Campfire...

The awning fits snugly over the top of the 110 HCPU pickup - it is the right height for most landrovers, and has a single centre guy rope which secures the awning to the vehicle.

The Campfire glows into the night....

Landrover Gear… Army Surplus.

kevin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:35:35 +0000

Some new additions from Marcruss Army Surplus in Hotwells: Two 5 litre Jerry cans, for diesel as my Defender’s fuel gauge is about as reliable as a… 20 year old Landrover fuel gauge!; and short handled folding army shovel and pick, and a couple of fantastic aluminium frame canvas and wood “Landrover Chairs” also army surplus (these from tents plus).

[click for larger image]

Winter Landrover Camp

kevin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:24:03 +0000

A quick Get Out & Stay Out trip up to the Mendip hills in Somerset, driving some excellent greenlanes along the way. It was the first week of February so pretty cold, but we used Australian “swag bags” (like a ‘bivvy’ bag, with sleeping bag inside) and the “campfire tent” which stays open to the campfire and so we were pretty warm. Highlights were seeing some Roe deer up close, and cooking some fantastic local rump steak on sticks over the fire.

The tent used here is a special beast: hemp cotton canvas “Campfire Tent” based on a traditional North American “Baker Tent” design, but built with modern materials and fittings, and a fantastic modular design that’s ideal for Land rover camping, with front or side entrances, mozzie net covered windows and ventilation flaps and comes with a full inner tent and various configurations of poles etc. Easily attachable to any Landy either at the rear or side, but works free-standing too. With a campfire out in front it is THE camp experience tent as far as I’m concerned- who wants to be locked away in a plastic, noisy dome tent, missing all the wildlife and views abround you. It’s available from the manufacturer, specialist tent, tipi and tarp designers “Green Outdoor” and they have a big sale on curently so well worth checking out. I’ll be featuring the tent here rigged up to my Landy shortly.