It's obvious that you've never done much camping in Australia's remote
areas. (this is a 4wd group !)
Nor do you appear to take into account the different physical capabilities
that our camping and touring population have.
So what are you firing at ?
Surely one of the facts of camping or touring is that everyone has their own
ideas on how they want to travel and camp.
I've slept under newspaper on a train station, camped in five star hotels,
in a three man tent on Cape York over summer, suffered stone bruises in the
western deserts, camped in the car for 3 days and nights during rains, yadda
yadda yadda.
I've also camped in campgrounds where others had virtually brought their
houses along to *camp*.
I've seen tents and swags and utes camped next to $100K+ rigs that wanted
for little.
I don't care if you have a tent or a swag or a caravan or c/t . .
So what was the  post about again ? :))))))))

Very nice. We also looked at a couple of very nice off road pop tops.

The Jayco range looked very good, but at $53,000 were a bit pricey.

We looked at another brand, can't recall their name though, and they were
really good.

Good clearance, great suspension and only 1600kg. Reasonably priced at
$38,000 for an 18 footer.

But for the use it would have got I could not justify spending that much
money.

In our situation we already have a nice 28 foot yacht which we use quite a
bit.
We also have 2 weeks timeshare on the Gold Coast we use each year.
I also try and spend 6 weeks per year in the USA & Canada and we try and go
on a Pacific cruise each year for 2 weeks as well.
Even though we run our own business from home, with a daughter still in
school, we are limited to the amount of time we can actually get off to
school holidays.

Admittedly the 6 weeks in the USA is usually on my own, on business, But
with 2 weeks already accounted for on the Gold Coast, another 2 weeks on a
cruise and at least another 4 to 6 weeks on our own boat, the off road
camper would really only spend most of its life sitting in the garage. That
was why we opted for the camper trailer. At $7,000 it was not a huge cost,
but is now there for when we want to use it.

Perhaps we may go away more often on weekends now that we have it?
I love the idea of exploring and now we can always set off on a Saturday
morning and head west until we decide to stop, set up camp, and continue
exploring the next day on our way back home. A great weekend away!!

Garry

There's nothing wrong with being old and grey. Sure, your body goes its own
way, but by then you often have enough dough to do what you want to do.
Met a 70yo who did marathons, a 68yo who bushwalked a lot of the year. Both
with high energy levels, and the experience of age.
Daughters friend is a travel agent who almost got fired for suggesting that
a hiking trek through Nepal wasn't suitable for a group of 65yolds. They
went straight to the owner !
If you look after yourself (I didn't :( and have reasonable genes there's no
reason why you can't be the oldest "cool cool" swinger in town.
A lot of outback travellers are over 65 these days. They not only know how
to go, but how to enjoy themselves.
So, just remember that 60 is the new 40 !
(God I hope so..cant wait  :))

Cheers
Jim

I paid a grand for a SCross ultimate tourer tent locally built, couple
of K for an offroad box trailer, had the stove and gas bottle.