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Web Spin:
Jeep Cherokee Sport
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The Jeep Cherokee looks
totally untroubled
as it loafs on the banks of the Pink Lakes.
The Motor Web's intrepid
reporter, Rod Eime, accepted a new challenge
- take a new Jeep Cherokee Sport and find the worst road to Adelaide!
Normally the trip to Mallala
is an uneventful, even boring, trundle across the Hay Plain into South
Australia, with little else but miles of nothing to break the journey.
The same peeling wallpaper at the Road House, blue-singleted truckies
huddled around jugs of steaming coffee and the same "wish-I-wasn't-here"
stare from the girl behind the petrol counter.
This time I was determined
to see the other side of the Great Nothing - and beat a trail through
it to Adelaide. The result; 2000km instead of 1400 and an eye-opener
on some of this country's remaining wilderness.
The Jeep was a perfect
choice for this mix of effortless and arduous terrain. It dealt with
the mundane highway cruising with limo-like comfort and simply laughed
at the messiest off-road stuff we could find.
With me was fellow photographer,
John Grote, a die-hard Land Cruiser fan, who'd owned just about every
type of the big Toyota, and bashed more than one to death on the dusty
plains back o' Bourke. I reminded him that this vehicle had to be returned
to the kind people at Chrysler Jeep - more or less intact!
We took the freeway to Wagga
where we left the beaten track and headed South-West through Lockhart,
Urana and Conargo. After ample rain, the countryside bore more resemblance
to lush English pastures than the cruel dustbowls I had seen only the
year before. We cut through some moderate tracks to get to Patchewollock
for our overnight stop, before making our way around the Wirrengren
Plain the following day.
The wildlife had bounced back from the drought with a vengeance, in
particular the Murray Grey Kangaroos, and it was clear by the carnage
in some areas that someone was trying to enforce population control.
Emus roamed around in large herds (or do they flock?) while squadrons
of galahs and parrots patrolled the skies. We threaded our way carefully
along the short but notorious Underbool track, and apart from a few
narrow bits and boggy holes, the Jeep was quite unperturbed. Not getting
lost was our main concern in this dense, featureless mallee. Through
Unberbool, onto the Pink Lakes for some pretty pictures, then via Mount
Crozier and the Sunset Track into South Australia.
Now the Sunset Track does
not appear on most maps. In fact, it's usually marked with one of those
"don't even think about it" dotted lines that peters out into nowhere,
joining up with a similar "you must be joking" one at the other end.
Well, it was a lovely day for a drive ...
The twisty 100km track passes through a mixture of virgin mallee, reclaimed
and exhausted cattle land, sandy ridges, rocky passes and salt bush
plain. In the end, not counting stopping for pictures and blind roos,
we averaged almost 40 km/h for the journey. The little oasis of Peebinga,
just over the border, sure was a welcome sight - thanks to a reliable
compass! After that little Leyland Brothers re-creation, the worst ordeal
still before us was the ever-daunting Mallala car-park crush!
The modern luxury 4WD,
has clearly opened up adventure opportunities for the average family,
enabling them to travel in the air-conditioned comfort of a station-sedan
like vehicle, with the all-terrain capabilities of something out of
Thunderbirds!
Our mini-odyssey, was merely
a cute experiment compared to what you could really get up to in a Jeep
Cherokee. In the end, with its 4.0 litre 135 kW "Power Tech Six" and
Trac Lock LSD 4WD system, we had really obviously tested our own outback
tolerance more than that of the damned Jeep.
Originally published in 4x4
Trader
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