The recovery kit I actually pack: what earns its place and what stays home

I got bogged on the Googs Track in 2019 with a snatch strap I'd never actually used, rated at a weight I'd never checked, on a rig I'd never calculated the true load for. Took forty minutes and a fair bit of swearing to sort out. These days the same situation takes ten minutes because the kit's been thinned out to what actually works, and I know how to use every piece of it. That's the real lesson after nine years dragging a 21-foot off-road van around this country: a recovery kit isn't about having everything, it's about having the right things and knowing them cold.

Most first-timers I meet at boat ramps and free camps have either nothing or too much. The too-much crowd worries me less, but they're still carrying kilograms of gear that'll never leave the bag, when that weight could be water or fuel instead. So here's what's actually earned a permanent spot in my tunnel boot, and what I've quietly retired.

The recovery track base: traction boards

If I could only keep one item, it's a set of recovery tracks. Sand, mud, that greasy black-soil bog you find after rain on the Birdsville Track — traction boards get you out of maybe 80 percent of situations without needing a second vehicle at all. I run the maxtrax-style boards, not the cheaper flat ramps, because the raised lugs actually bite instead of skating on top of wet clay.

The trick nobody tells you: dig first. Don't just wedge the board under a spinning tyre and hope. Clear a slope down to the board so the tyre's climbing onto it, not trying to leap onto it from a hole. I carry a folding shovel specifically for this, and it's used far more often for board placement than for anything else.

Snatch straps and the maths people skip

A snatch strap needs to be rated for the gross vehicle mass of the vehicle being recovered, with a decent safety margin, not the mass of the vehicle doing the pulling. My tow vehicle sits around 3,400 kg loaded, so an 8,000 kg-rated strap gives me room without being so stiff it won't stretch and store energy properly. Too light and it snaps; too heavy and it doesn't do its job, which is to stretch, load up, and release the stuck vehicle with a controlled jerk rather than a dead-weight drag.

Rated shackles at both ends, always. I use bow shackles rated to match or exceed the strap, never the little unrated ones that come free with cheap kits. And a dampener — a heavy blanket or purpose-made strap dampener — draped over the strap mid-pull. If a shackle or strap end lets go under tension it becomes a projectile, and there are documented deaths from exactly that failure. This is the one part of the kit where I won't cut corners or improvise.

Winch: worth it if you tour solo or go remote

I didn't fit a winch for the first four years. Then I did a lap that included the Gunbarrel Highway and realised that out there, with fuel and time between help, a winch is the difference between a recovery and a very long wait. If you're running tracks like the Anne Beadell Highway or the Old Tele Track solo, or even in convoy where the other vehicle might be just as bogged as you, I'd argue a winch earns its keep. If you're doing east coast touring and the odd forestry track, it's dead weight on the bar and I wouldn't bother.

Tree trunk protector, not a chain around the tree. Chains cut bark and kill trees, and on public land that's not a great look regardless of the legality. A snatch block to double your pulling capacity or change the pull angle. And gloves — winch cable, even synthetic rope, will take skin off if it runs through your bare hand under load.

Tyre deflation and reinflation: the unglamorous workhorse

This is the piece of kit that actually prevents most of my recoveries rather than getting me out of them. Dropping tyre pressures before you hit sand or corrugations does more for traction and comfort than anything else in the kit, and it costs nothing. I run a digital deflator that lets me dial in a target pressure and walk away rather than crouching at each tyre with a gauge. On sand I'll drop to around 18-20 psi front, a touch more rear given the load; on corrugated dirt I'm usually sitting 28-32 psi depending on the track and how loaded the van is. These aren't universal numbers — check your tyre manufacturer's guidance and adjust for load — but they're the ballpark I work from.

Reinflation matters just as much. A 12V compressor that can actually keep pace is worth the money over a cheap unit that takes twenty minutes per tyre and cooks itself doing it. I've had two cheap compressors die on me, both on the same trip up the Oodnadatta Track, which is how I ended up spending real money on a proper one afterward.

Comms: the kit that gets you help when the physical gear can't

Recovery gear solves the problem in front of you. Comms solve the problem when the recovery gear doesn't. I carry a UHF for local chatter and convoy work, and a satellite messenger for the tracks where there's no mobile signal and no other traffic for hours, places like the French Line or the Gibb River Road in the shoulder months. I've written a longer breakdown of which comms option actually covers you where, because the differences between a sat phone, a messenger and a UHF matter more than most people think before they're stuck needing one.

Recovery points, not the tow ball

I still see people hooking a snatch strap to a tow ball. Don't. Tow balls are designed for a downward, steady load, not the sideways or sudden loads of a snatch recovery, and they can shear off and become exactly the kind of projectile I mentioned earlier. Rated recovery points, bolted to the chassis, front and rear, are non-negotiable if you're doing any real off-road touring. If your vehicle didn't come with them from the factory, get them fitted before you need them, not after.

What I've retired from the kit

A high-lift jack sat in my tunnel boot for three years and got used exactly once, awkwardly, for a tyre change I could have done with the standard jack anyway. They're brilliant in the right hands for specific jobs, lifting a wheel clear of a rut, for instance, but they're also a known way to badly injure yourself if you're not drilled in using one properly. I've moved mine to "only if I'm doing a serious high-clearance track solo" rather than permanent kit.

I also dropped the second, cheaper snatch strap I used to carry as backup. One good strap, properly rated and properly stored out of UV light, does the job. Redundant gear you never inspect is worse than no gear, because you'll grab it in a hurry assuming it's fine.

Weight is still the deciding factor

Every kilogram in the recovery kit is a kilogram off your payload, and on a loaded van-and-tug combination that's already close to its limits, that matters. I'd rather carry less gear that I trust completely than a full kit I've never practised with. Before your next remote trip, lay the whole kit out on the driveway and actually use it once, snatch a mate's ute out of a paddock, dig a board in properly, run the winch out and back. It's the same principle as the hitch-up routine I run through before every hookup: cheap insurance against an expensive afternoon.

The gear that earns its spot is the gear you've actually used before you need it.