Ah ... all those creature comforts that we like to have these days have filled up the inside of our 4WD.

Throw the lighter stuff up onto the roof racks. Tents, swags, extra fuel (jerry cans), water maybe.

What else - oh the high lift jack, the long handled shovel for getting my overweight vehicle out of the sand. Possibly a spare wheel or two.

Canoes are pretty light aren't they - shove a few of them up there as well.

Must have a retractable awning - every else has one.... etc etc.

What we have done is made some quite significant changes to the vehicle. The centre of gravity has been raised so that we are more likely to roll the vehicle if we encounter a pothole, a washout, a patch of bulldust or deep sand. Or we try to avoid that roo that just seemed to come out of nowhere - but I had to drive a few hours at night to make up for lost time when we stopped for a meal at the last town.

Of course we will drive more carefully (slowly) now that we are carrying all this extra load up top. 

But do we really adjust to all driving conditions?

Now something else to consider is the matter of insurance. I'm not an expert but many manufacturers might state a maximum load to be carried on the roof. This load is likely to be 100kgs or less. And this includes the weight of the roof rack! 

So you have an accident because of overturning for whatever reason (excuse) and you have a roof rack with 150kgs or so .... You have decided to put that load up there outside the recommendations of the manufacturer.  

There are a number of excellent systems for roof racks available - I am not going to go into them here.

But I will say this. Make a list of all the gear that you take on a trip and when you get back, set aside the creature comfort "stuff" that you didn't use - I am not talking about safety equipment that because of your careful driving and trip planning you didn't have to use.