Due to health reasons I need to be around water during summer to help keep cool (not cold) and is one of the reasons I spend a lot of time at Greens Lake, Nth Central VIC. I can't handle the cold either so follow the warmer climates during winter. The humidity up north during summer would wipe me out.

Real hot days, 40c+ over a few days, I might even let gene out of the back of the Collie for run and enjoy the vans aircon, but only during the hours of 8.00am and 8.00pm.

-- Edited by Dougwe on Monday 16th of January 2017 06:28:27 PM

i also suffer from  very high temps

so when camping in a large area  i always set up well away from other vans 

put genny out so it can be seen  

but many times some clown with van parks very close   and then complains about my genny  it is a 2 kva (very quite)

i just say sorry mate  if you dont like it   move away plenty of room around here

i am the same as others have said only run it between 8 am-8 pm 

i will run my genny when i want 

not when others want

We stay in our beachside home on Port Phillip Bay for the 3 months of summer.    Couldn't stand camping with the heat, dust & flies.

We need to all think of when we were younger - there was no AC in cars, none at home, none in the shops - remember running under the sprinkler, all the curtains in the house closed (dark room was cooler) - a fan, with an ice block in a basin on a stool in front of it, blew cold air.

Camping was mostly in tents - or very small caravans with no air - four people sleeping in there at night. If it rained, kids ran and played in the rain and mud.

It rained very heavily here where we are camped the other day, puddles all over the place - little kids - 3 or 4 yr olds - started jumping in them - they ended up rolling in the mud - we were watching and laughing - they had a ball.

We live in a country that is hot in the summer - enjoy it!

I must say though, that we have Caframo fans, which keep us comfortable all day and night.

Thanks Santa.

I recall as a young child growing up and having to cope with hot temperatures in the summer. I recall our class rooms usually housed anywhere  between 40-50 students, no air conditioning and having to wear a tie to school all year. We played cricket in heatwaves, had our athletic carnivals in heat waves because that it just how it was.

Now that I travel about in my caravan, although I don't like heatwaves, I still cope alright. If it is stinking hot I sit outside under the awning or under a tree in the shade, no problem. When it is hot at night i use the 12 volt fan after giving the air conditioner an hour's blast if I am hooked up to power.

I don't understand why people need to bring every luxury along on the trip. There is nothing worse than sitting back enjoying the quiet of nature only to have some inconsiderate fool start up the generator so he or she can watch television or run their hair dryer. The fact that someone places their generator out in the open so everyone is forewarned is a selfish and inconsiderate act. Just because someone arrives at a free or budget camp first of all does not allow them to set the rules or protocol for the ones that arrive next. Does it mean that if I arrive first at a free camp and place, say a Ghetto Blaster out the front of my van that I am then allowed to blast the other campers with some appalling attempt at music?

I understand that different people have different needs so perhaps instead of them imposing their noise on others, why don't they go to a place where there is a power access and leave the rest of us alone. If I want to listen to generators all night then I will stop outside a power station.

Maybe I am selfish in wanting to enjoy the sounds of the ocean, bush and nature without some clown's Honda banging away in the foreground!

Whilst I do have a gen set it is only used when the weather is in the extremes ie. Above 38c/100f. Because shmbo suffers from the heat. For those that frown apon this I say go jump, my other half needs this running. When bush camping we try to be a reasonable distance from others however if someone wishes to camp close and the temp is high I warn them that sparky will get a run but will retire before 9pm. In more than 30 years of traveling we have had minimal trouble from other campers or their noise.

Santa wrote:

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OwenK wrote:

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Some people knock generators but when it's really hot and you're free camping they are essential. 

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 Essential eh! thank goodness our forbears we're made of sterner stuff, it's only in the past 50 years or so that air conditioners have become common place.

I've heard people make similar statements when visiting our arid interior, "people couldn't live in this country without aircon" they did and have done so for over 150 years.

 

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People lived without fridges and washing machines too Santa.

Bet you have them though.

Re (One way to keep cool in summer is move to Tasmania. Got hot the other day, 27. )

Recently talking to rellies in Tassie, they are now thinking of getting air con it was 28Deg that day.

41deg in Adelaide today. Our house was OK to around 3pm then air con turned on.

Peter

Yes we didn't have all the air-conditioner and 12v fans back then, and there were no air-conditioned shops and malls to go to when it got too hot - but remember that not a too long time ago, a lot of elderly people died from heat (and cold) exposure.

-- Edited by Possum3 on Tuesday 17th of January 2017 08:07:18 PM

I imagine that all the campers out there in generator land who venture in to places during hot weather do so only because they have their generator to run the air conditioner and TV.

What would happen if the generator, god forbid, ceased to function. Would they need to leave immediately or would that be impossible? Perhaps they would need the Flying Doctor or the Emergency Rescue Team to air-vac them out given that a piece of vital and essential machinery has ceased to function.

After all, the real reason we all go camping in the great outdoors is so we can sit all day in the caravan watching Home and Away with the air conditioner running whilst we text friends and family informing them how we are "getting away from it all"

-- Edited by DMaxer on Wednesday 18th of January 2017 09:42:18 AM

Isn't it good that we are all different, and all enjoy the same experience in different ways.

Sorry, but when we started to travel, I forgot to read the rules that said there was only one way to do it, and all the other ways were unacceptable. Some like aircons, others don't, some use generators, others don't. Whatever way YOU do it is fine by me. But don't criticise the way I choose to see the country. This is especially so where freedom camping is involved. The idea of freedom camping, as I see it, is to reduce the number of rules that inhibit the way people enjoy the outdoors. In that case, I find it ironic that people then seek to impose "rules" that they still want to see to enhance their experience, but limit that of others.

Anyway, enjoy the outdoors whatever way you can. Many don't have the opportunity!

Yes, I suppose it is selfish of me to try and limit people's enjoyment of their generators. Just imagine the deep serenity of camping in the outback, near a river, stars in the sky shining like diamonds and the melodic sound of a dozen generators running the air con and TV.

Like I said up there - some of us aren't 'camping' - this is life! So I'll have every comfort I need thanks. I'm too tight to run the gennie for AC flat chat, but, like yesterday I had to run it to operate my beaters to make bread because I'm coeliac. So that's precisely what I'll do. I also hate children and the noise they omit, but I don't complain relentlessly that children shouldn't be bought on 'camping' trips. There's no prerequisites to being social either. Who wants to listen to the part timers bang on about which road they took and how much diesel they used 365 days a year? Much prefer my satellite.
People need to realise everyone does things differently. One place I was, the guy ran the generator a lot. Nice fella. Never saw his wife at all....so I presume she was very ill (he said she was and they were going to Drs etc), so if running a generator enables her to have some enjoyment in her life, then all good by me.
It would have to be a necessity to run a gennie for any length of time, because you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out they're not a very economical way of having comfort.