The Wedgetail Camper is a premium product. Promoted as a slide-on camper, the Wedgetail is packed with features. One feature is the inside, outside kitchen.
Roadside Stops – One Of Life’s Simple Pleasures
If you’re like us, a quick cup of coffee by the side of the road is a necessity, not a luxury. And there’s nothing quite like pulling over under a tree in some remote location, making a sandwich for lunch and taking in the scenery.
When you’re on the road, you want these stop-overs to be simple and easy. The last thing you feel like doing is taking 10 minutes to set up a mini-kitchen every time you want to boil the jug.
Before the Wedgetail, we had a soft floor camper trailer. It had a Drifta kitchen mounted to the rear tailgate. Whilst this was a tough kitchen that survived an absolute pounding, it wasn’t quick to set up – certainly not for a roadside break anyway.
We compensated by using a two-ring portable burner and storing all the things we needed in the back of our 4WD. We simply didn’t use the camper trailer kitchen at all during roadside stops.
Allow Me To Present The Wedgetail Camper Outside Kitchen…
So how easy – or otherwise – is the Wedgetail kitchen to live with on the road? Well, before taking delivery of the Wedgie we didn’t think we’d actually use the outside kitchen for short coffee or lunch breaks.
But we do, every time.
Why? Quite simply, because it’s so easy to use. In under a minute:
- The passenger jumps out, opens the side doors on the Wedgetail camper, swings the burner out and connects the gas hose, swings the fridge out, turns the water pump on, fills the kettle from the tap and it’s ready to heat on the stove.
- The driver jumps out and turns on the gas.
Done!
If you’re travelling alone, allow another 20 seconds to turn the gas on…
It really is this simple. Everything you need is in front of you. The storage tubs slide out for access to food, coffee, mugs, cutlery and so on. The fridge is to your left and you have a preparation bench in front of you.
Then when you’re finished, you have access to everything you need to clean up the mess you’ve just made. Drop everything back into its allocated spot, turn off the water pump, turn off the gas, close the doors and you’re on your way.
This really is an ingenious design. The outside kitchen is completely independent of the rest of the camper.
What do I mean by “independent”? Well, if we had opened the rear tailgate on our camper trailer to access the kitchen, all of the bits and pieces lying against the kitchen would have tumbled down into the space previously occupied by the kitchen. All this would have to be repacked before we could close the kitchen again. You have no such issues with the Wedgies’ kitchen.
Any Downsides?
Not really. If you really want to be picky, there are a few small details worth mentioning.
The fridge can be a little heavy to slide back into its cabinet. A grab handle would help. Some Wedgetail owners have fitted a handle and we’ll probably do the same.
The fridge is quite high – an unavoidable consequence of the design. Keeping in mind our Wedgetail camper is mounted on the back of a 4WD truck, it’s hard to reach into the bottom of the fridge. This is easily solved with a small collapsible step – or often we just use the inside of the dished tyre rim as a step.
The final minor issue is the burner. This burner is designed for marine applications and can be used to cook roasts and the like. Rather than individual round burners, it has two straight parallel burners. Fantastic for cooking dinner, but pretty inefficient for boiling a kettle.
We’ve solved this serious first-world problem by replacing the straight burners with “hockey-stick” shaped burners. Much better!
There’s no doubt, the Wedgetail camper outside kitchen is an ingenious design. We’re yet to see a more compact and easy to use setup. They really have thought of everything.
Go here for a comprehensive video on the Wedgetail Camper.
Summary
Pros:
- Simple to use, everything falls to hand.
- Quick to set up and pack down – under one minute.
- The kitchen can be opened without touching the rest of the camper.
Cons:
- For some, the fridge is heavy to slide and rotate outwards – although we’ve not found this to be the case.
- Accessing the bottom of the fridge can be difficult without a step. In fairness, our truck tray is higher than most ute trays.
- The outside kitchen’s burner is inefficient for boiling a kettle. Not a big issue, it just means you will use a little more gas than normal.
Go here for more Reviews on our Wedgetail Camper.
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Any errors or omissions are mine alone.