About Us

Thermoguard Instruments was formed in 2003 by Ian and Annette Petersen. Ian is a qualified electrical engineer with over 25 years' experience in instrumentation and control systems for industry. In 2001, Ian and Annette purchased a 1997 Land Rover Discovery turbo-diesel 4WD (300Tdi engine) which they are currently using for extensive travels across Australia, with a well-loaded caravan. With his usual enthusiasm for technical knowledge, Ian set about extending his knowledge of turbo-diesel engines - what makes them work and how to get the best out of them.

This soon led to confirming the importance of EGT measurement - without doubt, the most critical measurement to ensure the efficient and safe operation of a turbo-diesel engine. Using his industrial experience, Ian designed an EGT gauge, using industrial-quality components, for his own vehicle. Some 5 years and 140,000 km later, this first gauge is still performing trouble-free. Shortly after completing this first gauge, he began producing kits for other 4WD enthusiasts, initially other Land Rover owners.

During 2003, during a 12 month 'working holiday' in Alice Springs, demand for the kits grew to the point where they registered the business name, obtained an ABN and began thinking about the website, which came 'on-line' in 2004.

In 2003, Ian completed a module of study in Diesel Fuel Systems Service and Repair at Centralian College, Alice Springs, Australia, and continues private study which includes Bosch diesel fuel injection systems.

Travel Updates:

• 2004 
• 2005 
• 2006 

2004

2004 saw the Petersens covering quite a few kilometres in the trusty Discovery, many of them with a caravan in tow. We travelled from Alice Springs (NT) to Brisbane (Qld) in December 2003, with caravan, to visit family and friends. 2004 began with four weeks of relief management of a caravan park in SE Qld for friends, then retracing the 3000+ kms back to Alice Springs to complete Ian's technical work contract. A memorable moment of this trip was the day we (and the Disco) survived ambient temperatures of 47.9 ºC (118 ºF) on the Stuart Highway, near Woomera in South Australia.

The off-road highlight of 2004 was a solo trip across the Simpson Desert in Central Australia in May. The Discovery took us from west to east across the hundreds of red sand hills to the famous outback town of Birdsville in SW Qld. Then it was back via the easy run down the Birdsville Track to Maree, the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek and our old friend, the Stuart Highway, to The Alice.

June found us making the trip to Brisbane once more but swinging further south via the Murray River, rather than yet again through Broken Hill, Cobar etc. in western NSW. The reason for again travelling to Brisbane was a five month house-sitting assignment. During this period we retired our well-travelled and overloaded 1991 Regal 16' single-axle pop-top caravan. It has been replaced with a 2002 Jayco 18' tandem-axle pop-top, with a much higher load-carrying capacity. December and another few weeks of caravan park management brought us to the week before Christmas - just enough time for a quick 1600+ km trip with the 'new' caravan in tow, to Innisfail, north Qld, to spend Christmas and the New Year with Ian's family.

Our sincere thanks to all the new Thermoguard customers we have had the pleasure to serve in 2004. Your support has been very encouraging and has given us the incentive to finally get some of our planned new products on the market early(?) in 2005.

2005

Again, a lot of kilometres under the tyres of the Discovery and the 'new' (to us) Jayco in 2005 - about 32,000km on the Disco and, say, three quarters of that with the van in tow. But unfortunately, not all of those kms were 'new territory', as we covered the Barky and Stuart Highways between Mount Isa (north-western Queensland) and Katherine (Northern Territory) four times during the second half of the year!

We managed to stretch our stay with Ian's family in Innisfail (FNQ) until into February 2005, when we finally set off on the long and arduous journey to Kurrimine Beach, a whole 40 km to the south. Here we camped just metres from the top of the lovely tropical beach. The next few weeks saw a relaxed journey down the Queensland coast, visiting places we had not stayed before, including Kinka Beach, Town of 1770 and Moore Park (near Bundaberg). Our next port of call was to our now 'spiritual home' in the south-east Queensland. Having looked after a caravan park for friends here several times now, it has become the closest thing we have to a 'home base'.

Mid-April found us on the road again, to the familiar haunt of Mount Isa but via a different route including Cania Gorge, Capella, Ilfracombe and Boulia. The plan was to spend just a few days here before heading to the Northern Territory but, as often happens, the plan changed radically! A visit to some old mates at the mines resulted in five weeks work. Then, "as we were ďn the neighbourhood", so to speak, we left the caravan in Mt. Isa and did a 2200 km, 7 day camping trip through the Gulf Savannah country via Burketown (Qld) and Borroloola (NT). Not long after, another chance discussion led to four weeks work helping out at a busy caravan park in Cloncurry. Here Ian ran into a Thermoguard customer from Tasmania - small world!

Another camping trip to the delightful Gregory River (to recover from having to work for a while...) and a bit of playing tourist in Cloncurry and Mt. Isa found us finally leave for the Northern Territory in early August (only three months later than originally planned!). But the long days of travel didn't last long. Two days out of Mt. Isa and we arrived at the Banka Banka Station campground, 100 km north of Tennant Creek on the Stuart Highway. And there's a "Help Wanted" sign on the bar... Thus followed an enjoyable two and a half weeks helping out at this delightful spot. Glorious NT winter weather and chatting to the many happy campers during "Happy Hour" every afternoon more than made up for the work involved. Except perhaps for Ian who had to stand in for the manager and present the nightly slide show all about life on a working Territory cattle station. For "city boy" Ian this was quite a challenge but he managed OK after a bit of practice.

Katherine and Darwin were our next stops, but our time in the Top End was to be cut short. A call from friends at a Mount Isa caravan park, to relieve them at short notice, saw us retracing our path to The Isa for a few weeks. Then it was decision time: we'd intended to visit northern WA this year but it was now getting quite late in the year (read: HOT and possibly wet). We chose to go for it, returning to Katherine then heading west through the Victoria River District and the Kimberleys to Broome. Yes it was hot; 45 ºC through Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. But while Broome is a distinctly pet-unfriendly town for travellers, we did enjoy a week or two there incuding a couple of magic evenings with new-found friends on Cable Beach. An 'overnighter' at the magnificent Cape Leveque was a highlight of our flying visit to the North-West. Next followed a fairly quick trek back across the continent to Cloncurry where we relieved the caravan park owners for a couple of weeks.

The significant event of the year for us was the purchase of a new Global Headquarters for Thermoguard Instruments! (Well, a rural block in SE Qld with a farm shed anyway...)

Thanks again to all our new Thermoguard Customers during 2005.

2006

The 2005/06 Christmas/New Year period saw us getting to know our new ‘place’ and some of our new neighbours. Several deep and meaningful discussions with them over the festive season concluded that, being members of the ‘landed gentry’ again (and pastoralists to boot!), we must have a tractor. So, some shopping around resulted in a ‘Grey Fergie’ being found. For the uninitiated, ‘Grey Fergies’ are the little grey tractors developed in England by Harry Ferguson in the 1940s & 50s. They were quite advanced for their time and are fondly remembered by many people from rural backgrounds. Ours is a 1949 TE-D20, which originally ran on either petrol or kerosene. It came with a new slasher and has already been quite useful around the ‘station’. Shame we couldn't find a diesel one - to fit up with a big turbo and install an EGT gauge...

The next few months flew by. We planted several dozen tree seedlings in various parts of the block, mostly native plants. On one day we drilled about 60 holes for trees with a motorised but hand-held boring machine – Ian’s teeth are still rattling, he says! Also we did a few weeks of ‘caravan park sitting’. March to June found us once again doing ‘the hard yards’, house-sitting for friends in Brsbane and several weeks of engineering work for Ian's former employers, including a couple of short stints in Mount Isa! (can we ever escape that place?).

Not much travelling this year? Just wait – we’re getting to that bit. On 28th August, we (together with Land Rover, caravan and Cloud the wonder cat) boarded the “Spirit of Tasmania III” at Darling Harbour, Sydney for her final voyage to the Apple Isle. And we’re still here!

The last months of '06 has seen us touring Tassie in our usual totally-unstructured fashion. We’ve spent many weeks at various delightful locations on the north and east coasts, as well as an intense 3-week ‘Tour de Tas’ in November with Ian’s relos. They hired a small motor-camper and we toured all the well-known tourist venues plus a good assortment of more out of the way places – and we all had a great time. What can we say about this spectacular place? It’s just such an intense place to visit. So much to see in such a relatively small area. Highlights have included the West Coast Wilderness cog railway (Strahan to Queenstown), the Tahuna Air Walk (up in the tree tops, above the Huon River), the beautiful Spring flowers (including tulips at Wynyard), deserted beach driving at Bridport etc. etc.

We have set-up camp at the small town of New Norfolk for the Christmas/New Year period. It’s about 40 km west of Hobart, further up the Derwent River. From all accounts, the coastal towns become massively crowded from Boxing Day onwards, so we’ve opted for this hopefully quiet location.

This year the 100th Thermoguard EGT kit was despatched and demand continues to grow steadily. Our sincere thanks to the many customers who have supported us this year.