Americans and Australians speak the same language, right?  I mean, it’s usually easy to communicate as long as accents are understood and the occasional strange word is allowed.  But when a few people started telling Julie and I that what we really needed with Tramp, our truck and camper combination that we had been building and fixing up, was a shake down it confused us.  A shake down is someone ripping you off or scamming you.  We didn’t want that with our new home on wheels.  But then we learned in America a shake down is a trial run, a test period to work out any kinks, a breaking-in session.  And that’s exactly what we needed with Tramp.

We had made a few changes to our Chevrolet Colorado, such as taking out the back seat to provide more storage, putting on the large front bumper and adding some large new shocks to handle the weight of the camper.  But the camper itself was the real focus, the V2 camper from XPCamper was a new product for them and our camper was only the seventh they had ever made.  So we knew we needed to learn more about our new home and that perhaps we would discover new things about the camper itself.

In the Gabilan Mountains east of the Salinas Valley in central California is Fremont Peak State Park, named after a famous military leader and explorer, perched high on the mountain with views in all directions and a camping area new the top.  Julie and I headed off for Fremont Peak, very excited about our first camping experience in Tramp.

It’s a long and winding road up to the base of Fremont Peak, which rises to 3,169 feet high (almost 1,000 metres) and when we set up camp we soon realised a light snow was falling.  The snow didn’t last but it was a cold walk up to the peak itself and our gloves came in handy.  From the top we were rewarded with stunning views down into the Salinas Valley on the one side and the San Joaquin Valley on the other.  Well worth the effort.

Our plan that night was to use as many of the features of Tramp as possible as part of the shake down process.  Just as well because as we returned to camp it started to snow again.  Never mind, we were ready for it and turned on our new diesel powered heater while Julie cooked a scrummy meal on our diesel powered cooker.  We had a warm and cosy night inside as it snowed outside, a crazy and totally unexpected experience as our first shake down trip.

Returning to our temporary home base, the days passed by as we made further changes to Tramp and bought a few more items for our big trip.  One major action item was to significantly improve the suspension system on the back of Tramp to help him carry the heavy camper.  That cost us a couple of days (and some major bucks!) but after that successful investment we were getting closer – and more excited – to leave.

To test out the new suspension, and just for the fun of it, Julie and I joined my sister Kathy and her husband John on a day trip to the family ranch.  We followed a slippery and muddy road to the spot where the high river from recent rains had cut off the road.  We waded across the water and walked the rest of the way into the ranch where we enjoyed a picnic in a very familiar family happy place before walking out along the banks of the creek.  This was a picturesque walk, gnarly old oaks and graceful sycamores lining its banks as we weaved our way along its path.  A great day out.

But we also had encountered a problem in that the outer shell of the camper wouldn’t go up to its expected height which in turn wouldn’t allow our space ship back door to fully extend in the open position.  There seemed to be something wrong with the opening and closing mechanism of the outer shell or something stopping it from fully extending in the open position.  After many calls to Marc at XPCamper and further testing at our end Julie noticed that the top shell was a little offline and rubbed on one side of bottom shell when it went up or down.  This lead us to discovering that one of the hydraulic arms on the inside that helps raise and lower the outer shell had broken away from its base and had thrown off the whole unit.

It was great to have found this problem while we were still in California, and yes, it was new technology, but we were gutted to have this major problem two days before our planned departure.  So…the next morning we were off on a 600 mile round trip mercy dash to XPCamper in northern California to get our hydraulic system replaced and reinforced.  Marc and his team worked hard all day to give us a one day turnaround and gave us a tip on where we could camp the night with our repaired unit.

So as light was failing we drove up to Scott Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains off Highway 20 north of Grass Valley.  We backed Tramp into a beautiful little camp site on the banks of the lake, collected some firewood and set up for our second shake down overnight trip.  We were camped at 3,100 feet but this time instead of snow we had a glorious clear night with a sky full of unfamiliar northern hemisphere stars and a glistening lake sprawled out at our feet.  Life doesn’t get any better than this!

Part of the shake down experience – and the fun of it – is to learn by trial and error how the different systems of the camper work and what is the best way to use them.  For instance, the diesel cook top stove is fantastic but needs about 15 minutes to warm up in order to boil water.  So we have to plan ahead for that, especially when early morning coffee is in high demand.  Also, we don’t have a great place to store firewood so we’ve bought a large heavy-duty duffel bag to help carry it.  And then there’s the water pump switch that needs to be turned on before water will flow (duh!) and the making and unmaking of the bed so we can close the camper in the morning.  We are wiser for all these things and many more as part of our shake down experience.

The final improvement to Tramp before we hit the road was a real personal touch, a link to our home in Australia and our property up and over the Blue Mountains.  Our son Zach had designed and printed a T shirt for the family at Christmas which featured the silhouette of the escarpment from where we camp on our property in the Wolgan Valley.  This image means a lot to us, our reminder of our distant home base.

I took that artwork to our nephew Matthew who does this sort of work for a living and he converted the image into a fantastic graphic which we had printed as a giant sticker and then carefully stuck to both sides of Tramp.  The striking image of that escarpment’s silhouette and the words Our Pangaea are now proudly travelling with us as a key part of our team.

A huge thanks to Zach and Matthew who combined to make this possible for us.