Voortrekka The Cape

Horribly overpriced canvas suitcase marketed as an amazing camping accessory. Where do I even begin? This thing is supposedly designed for camping and road trips — you know, activities where space and weight actually matter. Most campers try to pack lightweight, collapsible gear. Apparently this bag was designed by someone whose idea of “travel light” is towing a garden shed.

The bag has semi-rigid inserts, which means it NEVER gets smaller no matter how little you pack. Empty? Half full? Doesn’t matter. It permanently occupies the footprint of a medium-sized coffin. The absurdly oversized shoe compartment alone takes up nearly half the bag. Unless you’re transporting ski boots for a family of six, it’s hilariously impractical.

The actual clothing space is tiny because so much room has been sacrificed to what can only be described as a luxury apartment complex for shoes.

Assembly was an adventure in itself. Wrestling the gigantic self-assembly shoe box into the cavernous boot compartment felt less like packing luggage and more like trying to erect emergency housing after a natural disaster. On the bright side, once assembled, the shoe compartment could probably shelter a small family during a storm.

The internal dividers were supposedly “quick and easy to assemble,” which was technically true if you ignore the large divider having Velcro sewn in the wrong place by about 2cm. The result is a beautifully deformed storage box that looks like it lost a fight with gravity.

Once all the oddly shaped inserts are jammed into the bag, everything bows inward like a cheap tent in high wind. The only way to make it look remotely normal is to completely stuff it with clothing — which defeats the entire purpose of the rigid structure in the first place.

And despite all this engineering brilliance, the bag weighs almost 4.5kg EMPTY. Empty! By comparison, some actual camping tents weigh less and provide considerably better accommodation.

Then there’s the Velcro. Large Velcro patches on the sides and end so you can proudly display the FREE embroidered Voortrekka logo patch — because obviously what every camper wants is to advertise that they spent nearly $400 on a badly designed portable storage cube from VOORTREKKA.

Meanwhile the Velcro inside that holds the boxes and dividers together, catches on soft clothing like it’s actively trying to destroy anything cotton, wool, flannel and polyester that you dare to place inside.

The advertising also claimed the lid could be secured open using a strap attached to your rear seat headrest. Perfect, I thought, for use inside my camper trailer. Except… no. The strap is basically decorative. It doesn’t properly attach in any meaningful way, and the random Velcro strip underneath the lid appears to exist purely for spiritual reasons.

There are 2 other velcro strips that allow you to attach the 2 cheap little toiletry bags to the underside of the lid/flap.

At $396.95 this thing is offensively overpriced. If it cost $40 on AliExpress, you’d shrug and say, “Well, you get what you pay for.” In fact, I searched AliExpress and found dozens of camping bags with similar features for under $40.

This bag feels like a $40 Chinese bag wearing a fake moustache and charging a 1,000% mark up while pretending to be premium Aussie gear.

And the final insult? Once you get home, you can’t just fold it up and slide it under a bed. Oh no. You now own a giant semi-rigid 70L storage brick that must be partially disassembled like flat-pack furniture before it can be stored.

If size, weight, practicality, convenience, logic, quality control, and value for money mean absolutely nothing to you, then this bag is perfect.

Otherwise, I would advise you to avoid it like a campground toilet at a music festival.

I also note that this company is not a well established and highly respected Aussie brand and I sincerely doubt they have thousands of sales. According to ASIC, company appears to be a start up, first registered in March of 2025.