Apart from what is mentioned below, forums are good starting points to read about what others are doing, and to pose your own questions on items of particular interest. If you are interested in having a look at one of these, may I suggest Australian Caravanning hosted by MSN. It contains a set of lists to get you up and going; a few reports on caravan and camping spots; a few stats on some of the vehicles people are using for towing; etc.

Lessons in towing

I'd towed some heavy tandem axle trailers behind standard cars in the past so thought I knew enough to get out there and pull a caravan around. (Back when I did that, big trailers had "overrun" brakes so there was no extra wiring. You braked with the car and when the trailer caught up and pushed into the back of the car, it applied it's own brakes.)

It's as simple as having a towbar, dropping on the caravan and plugging the 7 pin plug into the socket then hauling off down the road on your first holiday isn't it? No!

Setting up the car - tow hitch

The van weighs about 2000kg empty, so the tow hitch for a Commodore needed to be beefed up beyond the standard towbar. (This includes the bar itself. The tongue. The rear suspension on the car. And adding "load levellers". All of which are included in the 2100kg tow hitch from Holden. I think Ford do something similar.)

If you are starting off with a four wheel drive, they may still need to have their rear suspension beefed up, and even if they feel rock solid on the road, all the experts will still tell you that you need load levellers. (Means about $570AU to replace your plain tongue away and put a weight distribution one in it's place! And this one doesn't come with the car!)

The picture here is from the Camec site and shows a typical hitch arrangement.

Setting up the car - wiring

Most 7 pin plugs only have 5 of the wires live. The 6th is for the electric activation of the trailer's brakes, and the 7th is to carry power to run such things as the fridge and to charge any van-mounted 12 volt batteries.

The van weighs more than 750kg so it must be fitted with it's own brakes. As it weighs more than 2000kg when it's loaded, all 4 wheels must have brakes on them. To send the message to the van to apply it's brakes requires a brake controller. This is a device that is wired into the car and sends a voltage to the van (down that 6th wire) which will apply the van brakes when the car brakes are used.

If you are interested in what the actual purpose is for each of the 7 pins, it is: #1=electric brakes; #2=right indicator; #3=12 volt power; #4=tail (and side) lights; #5=left indicator; #6=Earth; #7=auxiliary. 

To graduate the van brakes rather than having them come on fully every time the brakes are used in the car, some of these brake controllers use a pendulum. The greater the braking force in the car, the more the pendulum swings forward (or backward), and the greater the voltage sent to the van.

The "hot wire" or 7th wire to the van can also have a solenoid wired in to isolate the van from using the car's battery power when the car's ignition is turned off. I have had a few flat batteries in my driving history and was not interested in having a van causing me that inconvenience again, so this was a mandatory extra for me.

If you end up with a German car at some point, you'll find the Germans have come up with the idea of a 13 pin trailer electrical plug! It has a pin layout like the picture, and the purpose of each pin is: #1=left indicator; #2=fog light; #3=earth for pins 1,2,4,5,6,7,8; #4=right indicator; #5=right parking, side and number plate lights; #6=brake lights; #7=left parking, side and number plate lights; #8=reversing lights; #9=power to van; #10=ignition key isolated power (for fridges); #11=earth for pin 10; #12=not used; #13=earth for pin 9. Whilst it all looks good, the wires and pins are no where near as heavy weight as on a 7 pin system, the major drawback may be the current that the fridge pulls may cause pin 10 to heat up. (So far no problems, and we've driven more than 9 hours in warm to hot weather).

Setting up the car - mirrors

So we're all wired and hitched and ready to go? Still have one last thing to add - a means of seeing what's coming up behind you.

All the people you meet on the road will have a different take on what mirrors work or don't work for them. Most people have never found a mirror that is perfect to their needs! We looked at all the options, and have come up with the strap-on type (shown in a photo from the Camec site) that have a support arm down to a magnetic pad on the car door. You need a support arm for these to stop them being blown flat against the side of the car when a large truck blasts past you.

We've also fitted a rear view camera to the back of the van. It helps greatly to show what the mirrors fail to give you visibility of.

Ready... Set....Go?

Okay. So the car's all set up. The caravan's been hooked up and you've had a short drive to set the brake controller to the right setting. Now it's off home and then to plan your first trip away.

What to take?

There are lots of places to get lists of what to take with you. There are various Internet forums (such as Australian Caravanning hosted by MSN) and some of the camping retailers even have lists. All lists are a starting point, and you'll develop your own as you progress!

We started off with Adrian Ryan's site (Sadly he's pulled this down off the Internet and converted it into a couple of books which you can buy it seems) which is a very comprehensive list of lists about vanning! We plucked the eyes out of those lists to create our first list, and we've whittled that first list down over time. In our case we had to travel light as there has been so little between the dry weight of the van and the maximum weight the car could tow.

Final lessons

A few more things to learn about caravans.

• They weigh a fair bit! Even with a willing 5.7 litres and 225 kW of engine power, it takes a lot of fuel to get them up to travelling speed. It also takes quite a bit further to haul to a stop. When you leave any sort of gap between you and the car in front of you, you can be sure that some clown will try to fit their vehicle into that space, so be extra vigilant. (The van weight is also a drawback when trying to manoeuvre them on wet, slippery or slightly boggy ground. Usually you would be fine with just a car, or even the van as well in a reasonably straight line. Get any sort of angle between the car and the van and traction rapidly drops off. We got bogged on our first outing!)
• They cut corners! When you turn a corner and neatly miss the gutter, the van turns sooner and ungracefully climbs the gutter and bounces along behind you! Gutters can be bad enough, but when there's any more solid obstacle, you need to make sure the van will also be able to get around it when you take a bend or corner. (We nicked our rolled up awning fabric on the next site's steel awning when pulling into a tight "drive through" on our third outing. The clearance looked fine in the mirrors down at wheel level.)
• The van overhang behind the axles will swing quite a bit when you make a sharp turn! (We knocked over a rubbish bin whilst making a u-turn on our first outing!)
• Speed limits - After our first trip (where we were doing up to 100kph), we had a good read of the car owner's manual and only then noted that the maximum speed for our car was 80kph when towing a load greater than 1600kg! Ford also has a similar rule, so make sure you read up on the limitations of your vehicle.
• The load leveller bars are probably best removed before you try to back up a driveway or anywhere that there are pronounced differences in gradient. (Our first go at getting up the driveway saw the load leveller bars try to dig a hole in our concrete driveway! Meant I had to pull forward again to take them off.) If your vehicle is at an angle to the van be aware that there will be a greater amount of tension on these bars if you are trying to take them off or put them on.