BUSH KITCHEN

Portable fridges and coolers look much the same from the outside – they’re all insulated boxes with lids – but there are significant differences in the way they work and the type of energy they use. It’s necessary to know something about the ebbs and flows of the cooling business if you want to be sure of buying the right unit for your needs.

We’ve checked out many different coffee makers over the years, but the best manual-pressure one we’ve used so far is the Nanopresso kit. With available accessories it can produce a single or double-shot ground-coffee or a single-shot Nespresso capsule coffee.

‘Packing everything but the kitchen sink’ was once regarded as poking fun at those who overpack, but with ARB’s latest release, it’s part of the normal camping package.

Dometic has launched the CFX SLD95/100 slide that’s designed to mount Waeco CFX95DZW and CFX100W portable fridge/freezers.

​Dometic has launched an improved Dometic Waeco CFX portable fridge range. Aligning with a new brand promise ‘Mobile living made easy’, Dometic Waeco CFX units now feature the latest WiFi technology, which allows you to control and monitor the temperature of your unit remotely via an app.

Opposite Lock has a 40-litre portable fridge/freezer and a 72-litre portable fridge and freezer, designed to complement its Waeco, National Luna and Engel offerings.

Space is always at a premium when it comes to loading your vehicle or camper. Pots and bowls that fit inside each other used to be as good as it got, but now there are collapsible pots, pans and ‘crockery’.

Electronics have crept into the camper fridge market. Our experience with one such fridge wasn’t great, but a fix was easy.

Dometic Australia has released the Waeco CFX-95DZ2 portable compressor fridge-freezer. This dual-zone unit has two compartments that have individual lids and it comes with a Wi-Fi Android/iOS app.

Not everyone has a portable fridge and those who do sometimes need additional cooler capacity. That’s why the portable icebox still has a place. We tested six of them in summer heat.

The Ice Mule range of soft cooler bags and back packs rewrites the soft-cooler concept, we reckon.

The Coleman Pack-Away Kitchen disappears into a compact case. The sides of the case open out to form the serving table top. The stove stand opens on one side of the table top and a slip-on cooking tool frame clicks in place to hold tongs, spoons and the like.

We’ve taste-tested the range of Happy Camper Gourmet pre-cooked meals and now we don’t go anywhere without some of them in our food boxes. If our fridge packs up we won’t starve.

Tough and efficient mobile refrigeration gives bush travel a five-star touch, but you have to get the basics right.

We love our morning coffee and for years we struggled to find the best way to have espresso quality coffee in the bush. With our new Handpressos we’ve found it.

Portable refrigeration has changed the camping menu, for the better! There is no reason why meals served at home can’t be enjoyed when you’re camping too. With a bit of careful planning, you can even enjoy a cold beer or glass of wine at the end of the day.

The stove is a clever design, the two round burners are separated by a rectangular burner and with all three alight and the griddle on top there’s even heat over the entire plate.

One of the greatest health risks in the bush is illness caused by poor hygiene. We have a camp rule that we never touch food or eating utensils without washing our hands.

Before you start filling your food containers for your next trip, you should be aware of what you can and cannot take across State borders and into special exclusion zones.

We hadn’t travelled with a water filter before, but after one trip using a Katadyn unit we wouldn’t go bush without one again.