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Good Times Across the Tasman
What about a trip across the Tasman to see New Zealand in summer? Kiwis can boast about temperatures being somewhere within the average Aussie’s comfort zone during the summer months. If you can bear to wrap up warm during the winter months New Zealand is truly a winter wonderland, and is one of the most amazing places you’ll ever see – particularly in the South Island with the snow-capped Southern Alps.
There are always special places to go, and there are always plenty of activities – from white water rafting to multiple night treks that will have you tramping and camping through some of the most untouched, pristine mountainous areas in the world. And the best thing about the wildlife over in New Zealand is that the sand-fly is about the only creepy-crawly that is likely to cause you any grief, but then there are plenty of tricks that the locals know which manage to keep these beasties at a distance.
Probably, the best and cheapest way to see New Zealand would be to hire a vehicle that suits your budget. The great thing about car or van hire, is that you’ll pick and choose exactly where you’ll go and what you’ll do each day. You’ll be seeing New Zealand at your own pace, which will also mean that you’ll meet the friendly locals who, at worst, will only ever give you a friendly ribbing over the last time the All Blacks beat the Wallabies…again.
Most of the great New Zealand sites can be travelled to by car. Milford Sound is a must see, the glow worms at Te Anau, gorgeous scenery from Roxburgh to Alexandra, The Remarkables, Mt Cook, the Maze at Wanaka, Haast, Fox Glacier, Hanmer Hot Pools, New Zealand’s Hydro dams, the Catlins, Nelson Bay beaches, The West Coast, Punakaiki, The Wild Food Festival, Christchurch’s Botanical Gardens, Hooker Glacier walk… the list goes on, and these are just some of the easy-to-get-to places around the South Island. Do take a look at Arrowtown in Autumn, and make sure that you ditch the car and travel on the TranzAlpine train for a long weekend away in Greymouth.
Senior Citizens looking for cheaper options will find that there are some great savings to be had on travel and accommodation, both in Australia and throughout New Zealand. If you qualify for a Seniors Card from your state government here in Australia, then most Seniors Cards can now also be used for concessions when visiting New Zealand. Holders of Australian Seniors Cards are now able to access the same discounts as holders of New Zealand’s SuperGold cards, when travelling across the Tasman.
If you love driving, there are some of the great new cars available for hire at the bigger rental car businesses. New Zealand is one of the easiest and friendliest getaways for an Australian to make.
Big Bruisers
I wonder which of the big 4×4 bruisers you’d rather be seen in. I mean we are spoilt for choice when it comes to competent off-roaders that are, more often than not, seen on the smooth streets of Australia’s main cities. Unless you have a reason to bush-bash, I bet you rarely take the mud grips off-road; or am I being a little bit presumptuous? Anyhow, of the go-bush 4x4s, which are the ones you would be rather be seen driving?
Are you going to want the showy-off Discos, Rangies and Lexus LXs for cruising the streets at night and taking the in-laws to the biggest shopping complex in the CBD? I can see the value in these premium brands. Who wouldn’t want to impress others and offer a great night on the town in one of the most luxurious 4x4s around? Aside from the fact that they carry all the hardware for conquering Uluru, these are the vehicles that are sumptuous, proud and cocooned in leather. They’ll sooth every occupant’s whims, soak up the bumps and drive over the top of the poor sod in front who may dare to be in your way. Satellite navigation is available on these models to get you from the coffee shop to the rest room, while parking is care-free – with all the latest Park Assist technology. Park Assist is a feature that tells everybody in the back seat that you have no idea where the corners of the big Rangie are – and even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre yourself out of a paper bag!
Cayennes, X5s and Q7 V12s are the 4×4 performance machines that, though they may look impressively large and muscle bound, are left dragging the chain in any serious off-road excursion. Yes, they can hit 100 km/h from a standstill in under 6 seconds. Yes, they look impressive, and often offer luxury features to mimic a Rangie. And, yes, they are 4WD. But take them to Uluru, and they are like a fish out of water. I still want one, though!
Then there’s the Land Cruisers, and Patrols – and I’ll throw in the Pajeros and Hiluxs. They’re never quite a luxo match to the snobby Rangies or LXs, but they do know what mud is. Built with the Outback in mind, a trip to the top of Uluru and beyond is a walk in the park for these rugged beasties. I won’t let the Land Rover marque down here, as I reckon the Defender is one of the most rugged 4×4 machines you’ll find anywhere. This is the iconic off-road workhorse that can run with any of the Patrols and Land Cruisers to the other side of the globe, the long way!
I know I haven’t mentioned every 4×4 around. And, if you’re offended, then you are probably as fond of 4x4s as I am. There’s nothing quite like them. Big 4x4s can do pretty much anything: from running the errands to heading off to the CBD, from bouncing over the curb to taking half the cricket team to the next State. And, if you choose carefully, your 4×4 might just get you over the top of Ayers Rock.
It’s all about taste, anyhow. Don’t you think? 4x4s – you either love them or hate them.
Tyre-oglyphics
If you’re new to the world of motoring or if, up until now, you’ve been one of those people who has changed tyres the lazy way (going to the mechanic and saying “Put another set on, mate.”), you might never have looked at the tyres closely. If you do crouch down beside them to wash them or whatever, you might notice a string of letters and numbers that look as though the cat has been walking on the computer keyboard. Something along the lines of 251hggggggggggggggggggggggggl (that wasn’t on the side of a tyre – that actually was the cat). Now, these numbers aren’t just put on there for the fun of it, to decorate the tyres or to give the blokes and blokesses who make and change the tyres something to look at. They’re to let you know important facts about your tyre.
Confession time: until quite recently, this writer was one of those lazy people when it came to changing tyres, and it was something that the other half took care of. I was more like Mr Bean in “Mr Bean’s Holiday”, where the word “Dunlop” on the tyre of Sabine’s Mini was about all he could recognize in a welter of gobbledegook. I had a code to learn and to decipher. The code isn’t that hard, really, once you have a sort of Rosetta Stone to help you learn the ancient secrets of tyre-oglyphics.
This code is used to decipher ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) codes. As they’re international, you don’t have to get a new Rosetta Stone to decipher the tyreoglyphics for cars that have been imported. We’d all go mad if we had to do that and might even consider going back to bicycles, except they have codes on their tyres, too.
The first bit of the code is a letter. This indicates the sort of vehicle you should put the tyre on. The letter that most readers will have on their car tyres is P, which stands for passenger vehicle. However, if you have put on the space-saver tyre and haven’t bothered to change it to a real one after getting a flattie (bad idea but at least some manufacturers, such as Volvo, don’t compromise your safety for a bit of extra boot space and don’t give you these), you will see T for temporary, meaning that you’re only supposed to use it to limp to the mechanics. If you see ST, you’ve got a Special Trailer tyre and if you see LT, you’ve got a Light Truck tyre.
The second bit of the code is also fairly easy to understand. This consists of three letters in front of a slash (/). This gives you the tyre’s full width in millimetres, measured at the widest point. No worries there.
After the slash, it gets a wee bit harder and some bits are optional. First of all, you’ll get the tyre’s aspect ratio, which is a two-digit number, as it’s a percentage. The aspect ratio of a tyre is the sidewall height divided by the width. This number can be left out, in which case the aspect ratio is 82% (the % sign gets left off the tyreoglyphics).
Then you might get another letter that shows how the tyre has been made. This will give you an indication of how the tyre handles on the road. Here, B is for Bias Belt, D is for Diagonal and R is for Radial. If you don’t see a letter in this part of the tyreoglyphics, then the tyre is a good old cross-ply.
After this, you get the diameter of the tyre, which is very straightforward apart from one thing: it’s in inches. You’d think that in these days when nearly every country of the world except for the USA uses metrics for everything that we’d be using millimetres or centimetres to measure tyre diameters. However, like TV screens and certain parts of the male anatomy, tyre diameter sticks with inches, and in two cases out of three, the general rule is that the big ones are the luxurious versions. Take a look at any vehicle that has a luxury variant or a sporty upgrade on the bog-standard type: chances are that the posh version has bigger tyres. For example, the basic Opel Corsa has 15-inch tyres, the Opel Corsa Colour has 16-inch tyres and the sports upgrade has 17-inches.
Then you get into the really hard bits. After the diameter, you’ll find a two-digit code indicating the load index, which indicates the maximum load (weight) that the tyre can carry. However, the ISO haven’t done anything as sensible as making this number equal the weight in kilos or even pounds. A mathematician could probably find the formula that links a weight of 280 kg (or 620 pounds) to the figure of 64 and all the rest of it. But for the rest of us who aren’t maths professors, there’s nothing to do but to learn the codes or look them up. You can find load index tables online really easily: here’s one.
After the load index, you get the speed index, which is another code. The speed index tells you the maximum speed you can go when the tyre is carrying the maximum load. This is coded as a letter and is a bit easier to wrap your head around. At first glance, it looks easy, but there’s a few quirks. If you have a tyre with A on the side (unlikely these days), it’ll have a number after the letter: A1 means the maximum speed is 5 km/h, A2 means 10 km/h and so forth up to A8 meaning 40 km/h. So far, so good. B is 50 km/h and C is 60 km/h, but D isn’t what you would expect and is 65 km/h while E is 70 km/h. The rest of the alphabet progresses more or less normally, going up a letter for every 10 km/h, except that I has been left out because it looks like a one and the person who wrote this code decided that H, W and Y need to go where you don’t usually see them. H goes between U and V, and indicates a maximum speed of 210 km/h. W comes after Z and indicates 270 km/h and Y comes last of all and indicates 300 km/h. If you see a set of parentheses around the W or the Y, it means that you can go over these speeds, so (W) means you can go over 270 km/h and (Y) means you’re a race driver who can go over 300 km/h.
This just scratches the surface of tyreoglypics, and there are other odds and ends you can find on your tyre, including codes to say that this particular tyre is approved by, say, Mitsubishi and Toyota (MZ). But that thing with the letters and numbers with a slash in the middle is the really important one. Ask your mechanic about the rest.
Have Caravan, Will Travel
Experiencing the charming realm of a caravan holiday is hugely stress-reducing, and caravanning is a simple and easy way of going bush with a few of the extra creature comforts that can make the adventure that much more laid-back and comfortable. If you’ve ever had the chance to camp, most of you will agree that the relaxing times in tents and caravans, away from technology, can be one of the best ways to recharge your body batteries. Caravans offer much more comfort and shelter than a tent, and they can be kitted out with everything that you need for camping. So, when the time comes to head away, you just hook up the caravan and away you go.
Touring Australia by caravan is the best way, I reckon. Although, my love of motorcycling is hard to flick off. The right car for the job is a big must. Not just any vehicle is going to be happy towing a caravan, so you’re advised to check what the vehicle manufacturer says your vehicle can tow. If you want to tackle some of the more remote areas, which will inevitably mean you’ll travel Outback roads and tracks, then a 4×4 like a Nissan Patrol, Land Rover Discovery or Toyota Land Cruiser will do the job, no probs. Your caravan will also need to be up to the task of travelling off the tarmac, and there are plenty of very good caravan designs which are suitable for off-road work. Roadstar Caravans and Creative Caravans are two examples of Australian caravan manufacturers who make a super nice caravan that can withstand the rigours of off-road work.
If the idea of getting lost in the Outback is not for you, then caravanning the coast of Australia is easy-as, and can be done in your Holden Cruze or Toyota Corolla – even, as long as you stick with towing lightly designed caravans. Just think: cheap accommodation, your own bed, own food and you can even get up and leave when you want to. Now that sounds relaxing!
What to do when nature calls? If your caravan doesn’t have a built in bathroom and toilet, then the best way to cater for heading off to the loo is by using one of the vast array of portable toilets. These are very easy and cheap to buy at any outlet that sells camping gear. Even Kmart will have one. A spade in the boot is the next best option. You can use this for digging a long drop – and when you get your vehicle stuck the spade is a must have.
Having a good supply of fresh clean drinking water and plenty of easy-to-make meals is a good idea. Take some candles for lighting purposes, as thay are not only simple and easy to use, they create a romantic atmosphere to you caravan interior as you sit sipping wine and watching the red sun set. Sometimes Australia can get really cold, particularly overnight. Do make sure that you have a good supply of blankets and warm clothing. A good Australian atlas is a must, especially one that will show you where the caravan parks, camping areas and 4WD tracks are – not to mention fuel outlets. If the track you care to take will take you to the never-nevers, then it’s wise to let someone know your whereabouts and your expected time of arrival. An emergency kit with anti-venom and a cell phone are other really important items.
Whatever the vehicle is that you are using for towing the caravan, make sure that you are up-to-date with its servicing. The last thing you want is a break down in the middle of nowhere. Checking the condition of the caravan is important, too. The chassis, wheel bearings and tyres are the key areas to keep in good nick. Carrying some tools and materials for emergency repairs is a wise idea – depending on how ‘go bush’ you will be going.
Heading off in your favourite drive, be it the C-Class Estate, Landie or Sportwagon, with a caravan towing behind, there are fewer more satisfying ways of exploring this great country of ours. And whether you have children or not, you are going to make for yourself some great long-lasting memories.
Level 2, 9 Help Street