Adventures with Isabel
Introducing Isabel, the all-new Global Warrior. We have finally set sail in what should have been Tony’s yearned-for yacht but has emerged as a 4WD motorhome with marine-style construction and finish.
I am astonished how much attention Isabel is getting along the road. Men just love her and seem to be drawn in by her pert rear end. When we set off, she was the only one of her kind in Australia but others are coming off the production line soon. After the prototype, the first Global Warrior was driven out of the workshop by Benoit and pointed at France, via Russia, with a wife and four kids under 10 on board.
Others are now coming off the line at the All Terrain Warriors factory at Yandina.
We left in mid-July on a comparatively sedate poke into remote parts of Australia, giving final instructions to the Housekeeper and Farm Manager. I had indignant looks when I suggested “Try not to left the pig dog eat the chooks.” The Farm Manager protested his beloved pig dog has never touched a chook. The Housekeeper concurred.
The chooks have had natural attrition from hawks, foxes, the white cat and finally the border collie. The chooks actually belong to The Housekeeper, which is extremely fortunate as she also owns the killer white cat. Even more great fortune is attached to the fact that she also owns the border collie which was charged with looking after the chooks.
It stepped totally out of character before we left by launching itself at little Horrie. Seems like most border collies it took its protection job to heart and when it thought horny Horrie was attacking the squawking, protesting females it jumped to the rescue. The squawking reached a crescendo and investigation revealed a confused, guilty border collie with a dying golden pekin rooster in his mouth.
We left everything to the tender mercies of whoever is higher on the food chain and set forth in what has been designed to be a tough overland expedition vehicle, built by All Terrain Warriors (ATW) in Yandina.
This is going to be a different experience to our previous Australian explorations. We have traipsed more than 100,000 kms around the country, living mainly in the back of utes with our feet sticking out. We like to get to out-of-the-way places where towing anything can be a problem .
ATW have been building overland expedition and mining industry vehicles for yonks. The Global Warrior is their latest motor home model, two years in the pipeline and designed to pull in the best of all of their earlier editions.
Isabel is a fibreglass, vacuum-wall house on an Isuzu NPS 300 4x4 with parabolic suspension and air-adjustable Robo shocks. She has a 15,000lbb rear winch, 19.5 single off-road tyres with two spares, diesel heating for hot water and heating and 2x220m/h house batteries.
She has solar power, shower and toilet, outdoor shower, LSD rear differential and ATB front diff. The fun stuff: electric pop-up roof, awnings either side, queen size bed, four seat belts in the dinette that converts to a double, roomy Italian fridge and freezer drawers and supercomfy cabin seats.
I named her Isabel, to Tony’s disgust. Friends have been a little more polite. Maybe she should have been Rocky, or Bruce or even Boadicea but Isabel the Isuzu it is.
Now we are off in search of the flocks of migrating Grey Nomads who have gypsied Australia in the last 15 years. I am writing a column for the Fraser Coast Chronicle which I will also post on my blog along with other photos and yarns. I hope you log in now and again to see how we are going. .
* Nancy Bates has been a journalist in Australia and New Zealand for more than 40 years. When she retired, she was Australia's longest serving female editor of a daily newspaper. Husband Tony had a career as a printer and also dabbled in cattle, cane, keeping tabs on kids and Nancy and fishing whenever he can.
** Header photo shows Nancy and Tony at Karajini (Hammersley Ranges) on an outback journey.
Introducing Isabel, the all-new Global Warrior. We have finally set sail in what should have been Tony’s yearned-for yacht but has emerged as a 4WD motorhome with marine-style construction and finish.
I am astonished how much attention Isabel is getting along the road. Men just love her and seem to be drawn in by her pert rear end. When we set off, she was the only one of her kind in Australia but others are coming off the production line soon. After the prototype, the first Global Warrior was driven out of the workshop by Benoit and pointed at France, via Russia, with a wife and four kids under 10 on board.
Others are now coming off the line at the All Terrain Warriors factory at Yandina.
We left in mid-July on a comparatively sedate poke into remote parts of Australia, giving final instructions to the Housekeeper and Farm Manager. I had indignant looks when I suggested “Try not to left the pig dog eat the chooks.” The Farm Manager protested his beloved pig dog has never touched a chook. The Housekeeper concurred.
The chooks have had natural attrition from hawks, foxes, the white cat and finally the border collie. The chooks actually belong to The Housekeeper, which is extremely fortunate as she also owns the killer white cat. Even more great fortune is attached to the fact that she also owns the border collie which was charged with looking after the chooks.
It stepped totally out of character before we left by launching itself at little Horrie. Seems like most border collies it took its protection job to heart and when it thought horny Horrie was attacking the squawking, protesting females it jumped to the rescue. The squawking reached a crescendo and investigation revealed a confused, guilty border collie with a dying golden pekin rooster in his mouth.
We left everything to the tender mercies of whoever is higher on the food chain and set forth in what has been designed to be a tough overland expedition vehicle, built by All Terrain Warriors (ATW) in Yandina.
This is going to be a different experience to our previous Australian explorations. We have traipsed more than 100,000 kms around the country, living mainly in the back of utes with our feet sticking out. We like to get to out-of-the-way places where towing anything can be a problem .
ATW have been building overland expedition and mining industry vehicles for yonks. The Global Warrior is their latest motor home model, two years in the pipeline and designed to pull in the best of all of their earlier editions.
Isabel is a fibreglass, vacuum-wall house on an Isuzu NPS 300 4x4 with parabolic suspension and air-adjustable Robo shocks. She has a 15,000lbb rear winch, 19.5 single off-road tyres with two spares, diesel heating for hot water and heating and 2x220m/h house batteries.
She has solar power, shower and toilet, outdoor shower, LSD rear differential and ATB front diff. The fun stuff: electric pop-up roof, awnings either side, queen size bed, four seat belts in the dinette that converts to a double, roomy Italian fridge and freezer drawers and supercomfy cabin seats.
I named her Isabel, to Tony’s disgust. Friends have been a little more polite. Maybe she should have been Rocky, or Bruce or even Boadicea but Isabel the Isuzu it is.
Now we are off in search of the flocks of migrating Grey Nomads who have gypsied Australia in the last 15 years. I am writing a column for the Fraser Coast Chronicle which I will also post on my blog along with other photos and yarns. I hope you log in now and again to see how we are going. .
* Nancy Bates has been a journalist in Australia and New Zealand for more than 40 years. When she retired, she was Australia's longest serving female editor of a daily newspaper. Husband Tony had a career as a printer and also dabbled in cattle, cane, keeping tabs on kids and Nancy and fishing whenever he can.
** Header photo shows Nancy and Tony at Karajini (Hammersley Ranges) on an outback journey.
