The first thing you notice on a long lap around Australia isn’t the kilometres. It’s how quickly life changes.
One day you’re worrying about deadlines, meetings and school zones. A week later you’re watching the sun come up over the Flinders Ranges while wondering whether the coffee machine has enough battery power and whether you’ll find diesel before lunch.
For my wife Jane and me, that change was exactly the point.
Like many Australians, we’d talked for years about taking an extended trip around the country. Work, life and all the usual excuses kept getting in the way. Then, after a particularly bruising period professionally and with a significant birthday looming, we decided there was never going to be a perfect time. If we didn’t go now, we probably never would.
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So we rented out the house, bought a caravan, packed up our two dachshunds, Eddie and Lulu, and pointed ourselves towards the horizon.
Our plan was simple enough on paper: Melbourne to Adelaide, north through the centre to Darwin, across the Kimberley and then down Western Australia’s spectacular coastline before eventually looping back across southern Australia.
About six months. Roughly 20,000 kilometres.
Like most plans involving Australia, reality would undoubtedly have other ideas.
Choosing the newest ute on the block
There was another important part of the adventure.
Rather than taking one of the established players, we’d be relying on the newest entrant into Australia’s fiercely competitive dual-cab ute market: the Kia Tasman.
No vehicle launch in recent years generated as much discussion as Kia’s first ute. Long before anyone drove one, people had already made up their minds about its styling. Love it or hate it, almost everyone had an opinion.
What mattered far more to me, though, wasn’t how it looked parked outside a café. It was how it would perform dragging a fully equipped caravan across some of Australia’s harshest roads for months on end.
That is a completely different test.
A media launch lasts a day or two. You drive carefully prepared routes in well-maintained vehicles before handing back the keys.
A genuine lap of Australia asks very different questions.
Can the cabin remain comfortable after eight hours behind the wheel?
Does every storage compartment still make sense after living out of it for months?
Can the drivetrain cope with relentless towing in high temperatures?
What breaks? What wears? What simply becomes annoying?
They’re questions only time can answer.
Preparing for the road ahead
Our tow vehicle was a Tasman X-Pro, Kia’s flagship off-road model, paired with an MDC Forte SR19 tandem-axle caravan.
Neither Jane nor I pretended to be seasoned grey nomads. This was our first major caravan adventure, which was precisely why we wanted to document it honestly. We were learning as we went.
That learning started well before we left Melbourne.
Buying the caravan turned out to be only the beginning. Suddenly there were hoses, levelling ramps, wheel chocks, power leads, water filters, folding tables, chairs, recovery gear, tyre pressure monitors, solar accessories and enough fittings to make your head spin.
Caravanning isn’t just buying a van. It’s building a travelling home.
The Tasman needed preparation too.
An Anderson plug was fitted to charge the caravan batteries while travelling. A canopy was installed to improve security and weather protection for the gear living permanently in the tub. Weight distribution became an obsession as we discovered just how much influence payload, tow-ball download and axle loads have on how a combination behaves.
Those lessons would become some of the most valuable of the entire journey.
Then there were the dogs.
Eddie and Lulu probably cared less about suspension geometry than they did about finding somewhere comfortable to sleep each night, but they quickly became part of the travelling routine. Their presence slowed us down in the best possible way. Walks became mandatory. Dog-friendly beaches became priorities. Every stop involved a little more planning.
They also became remarkably good judges of caravan parks.
Destination Australia: No turning back
The departure date eventually arrived on April 1.
Almost immediately, another challenge emerged.
Tensions in the Middle East had sent diesel prices soaring, raising genuine concerns about both affordability and fuel availability in remote Australia. As we packed the final items into the caravan there was serious discussion about whether we should postpone the trip altogether.
In the end we decided to head for Adelaide and reassess.
If things deteriorated, we could always turn around.
Instead, the journey continued.
Learning life on the road
The first weeks became an education.
We learned that towing a large caravan is less about speed than rhythm.
We learned that packing efficiently matters far more than packing extensively.
We learned that every experienced traveller has advice — and, remarkably often, they’re right.
We also learned that Australia’s caravan community is one of the friendliest you’ll ever encounter. Pull into almost any park and it won’t be long before someone wanders over for a chat.
That happened repeatedly with the Tasman.
The styling might divide opinion online, but in caravan parks across South Australia and beyond, people were endlessly curious. They wanted to know how Kia’s first ute stacked up against the established favourites. Most admitted they hadn’t even seen one in the metal before.
Those conversations became part of everyday life.
So did the discoveries.
The Flinders Ranges exceeded every expectation. Coober Pedy was unlike anywhere we’d ever visited. Kings Canyon was breathtaking. Alice Springs proved considerably more welcoming than its reputation suggested.
Every week seemed to challenge another preconception.
And through it all the Tasman quietly accumulated kilometres.
Some days it worked hard dragging more than 2.8 tonnes into headwinds. Other days it became little more than comfortable transport for sightseeing after the caravan had been unhitched.
That contrast would prove important.
By the time we reached Darwin we’d covered more than 10,000 kilometres and experienced everything from smooth highways to corrugated tracks, tropical heat, outback isolation and rapidly changing fuel prices.
Most importantly, we’d begun to understand not just the Tasman, but what life on Australia’s roads is really like.
Over the coming months we’ll examine every aspect of that experience — from towing performance and fuel economy to the modifications that proved worthwhile, the realities of living with a dual-cab ute every day and the lessons we’d pass on to anyone planning their own Big Lap.
Because while this story begins with Kia’s first ute, it’s really about something much bigger.
It’s about discovering whether one vehicle, one caravan and one ordinary Australian couple could take on one of the world’s great road journeys.
We’re about to find out.
Kia Tasman X-Pro price and specifications
Price: $74,990 plus on-road costs
Body: Dual-cab ute
Engine: 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Power: 154kW
Torque: 440Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
4WD system: Selectable 4WD with 2H, 4A, 4H and 4L modes, dual-range transfer case and rear electronic differential lock
Tyres: 265/70 R17 all-terrain
Ground clearance: 252mm
Approach/departure/rampover angles: 32.2/26.2/25.8 degrees
Weight: 2237kg
Gross vehicle mass: 3250kg
Payload: 1013kg
Tow capacity: 3500kg
Gross combination mass: 6200kg
Official fuel consumption: 8.1L/100km
Fuel tank capacity: 80L
Expected real-world fuel range: approximately 808km (but less when towing!)
Caravan: MDC Forte SR19 tandem-axle caravan
