Haval rhymes with gravel

As is often the case, whatever field you’re in, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s pretty great and what sucks.

Case in point… I was chatting to one of the other fathers at my daughter’s school as we awaited the bell and we were both bemoaning upcoming work travel.

He was off to a conference in Canberra. In winter…

Which sounded awful.

Me: “I have to drive from Darwin to Adelaide on my own in three and half days…”

“Need an assistant?” he quickly chimed in…

On paper, 3500kms of straight roads in four days sounds terrible. But, like any road trip, it’s not the distance or the place which determines the ‘fun factor’… It’s always what you make of it.

In 2005 my then girlfriend (now wife) and I rode a motorcycle from Melbourne to Darwin, over to Cairns and then Cape York, before returning home (Melbourne). On the way we got engaged. If your relationship can survive falling off your bike in deep sand again and again and again…then you’re good for life.

Last year I joined the BMW GS Safari ride as videographer and rode part of the Stuart Highway - our main goal was clearly all about dirt. Fortunately for the sake of peace at home on my return, I didn’t propose to anyone on that trip.

The task at hand
But back to the moment. Have you heard of Haval (rhymes with gravel)? My task was on four wheels this time – and in completing it, I’d be the first of the wider motoring.com.au crew to take a long drive in a vehicle from the fledgling Chinese brand.

Haval is a relative newcomer to this wide, brown land. And while the paved Stuart Highway wouldn’t be any torture test, it would give us enough time to deliver an opinion.

Thanks to Google Maps and some vague memories, I began to plot the trip with what I thought were realistic goals: long days (but not insanely so), good spots to stay and some good spots for selfies and photos.

As a father, I naturally established a schedule which was too tight with essentially no ‘wriggle room’.

Grounded
Day One. A 12:30pm arrival at Darwin Airport then an immediate taxi to the pick up the car. Haval builds a range of SUVs but naturally, for this trip we chose the smallest – the H2.

After a quick ‘hello’, followed by an official departure, keys to the city, etc, the schedule only permitted a six-and-a-half-minute trip to the local supermarket for supplies.

About an hour south of Darwin I stopped to sort out a few things. Putting on shorts alongside the highway amused some truckies and then ensued a frustrating 15 minutes to pair the Bluetooth and swear at the silence.

If there’d been clouds, I would have yelled at them too…

To ensure I didn’t miss the full experience of “Travel in the Haval” (copyright: Tom Reynolds, 2017), on night one, in the delightful Mataranka/Bitter Springs region, I elected to sleep in the car. Here my H2 research fell rather sharply short (literally). It became immediately and uncomfortably clear the second-row seats do not fold totally flat. So, my 190cm frame was forced to sleep on my inflatable mattress on the ground.

A night punctuated by bats eating what sounded like gravel would have ordinarily left me furious, but an early swim in the springs was too much like bliss.

I decided to take my waterproof camera for some shots and videos. Imagine my sheer joy when it leaked and died inside 10 minutes of use. Thankfully my GoPro Session suffered no such ills…

The delightful pre-7am swim was followed by some gruel at a roadhouse, then I nailed my ‘Clark W Griswold’ inspired schedule into day two…

Raised limit
From the outset, this day always pencilled in as ‘aw hell naw’ in terms of distance. With 1080km of pretty flat and featureless road ahead, I was soon thankful for the NT’s 130km/h limit.

We do need to talk about the Stuart Highway speed limit. Every few years there’s a change of government in the NT and one party brings in a speed limit and the other abolishes it. For mine, I think 130km/h is about right.

The road might be pretty straight, flat and boring, but it doesn’t have the road surface and quality of a German autobahn. I hit an unsighted (and huge) ripple in the road and nearly vaulted over the road train I was following. I actually thanked the Haval H2 for its composure and long travel suspension.

Add in the regular wildlife (not just dead roos, but birdlife feasting on said roos) and I think anything over 130km/h is a recipe for disaster.

It’s noteworthy I did not see one police member patrolling the Stuart Highway for its entire length. Maybe they were hiding and I wasn’t speeding so there was no reason for us to meet…?

Alice, Alice, who the…
After the night in Mataranka on the inevitably slowly deflating mattress (a wonderfully simple allegory for my career), a night in a luxury hotel in Alice Springs was exactly that – luxury.

Day Three and up early again, but this time with only 700kms ahead -- fully cognisant of the fact that I was going to lose the 130km/h limit just a few hours into the day.

It’s hard to downplay the difference 30km/h makes. Simple maths says in four hours you travel 520kms vs 400kms (at 100km/h). When you have a 1K day, we’re talking a 2.5 hour difference.

Of course, it’s hard to pass up Alice Springs for a ‘golden hour’ photoshoot. So I parked the Haval in the lower Anzac Hill carpark and left a time lapse camera to do its thing while I took pics from up top.

To rub it in, I FaceTime’d my brother in Los Angeles. He was in a hammock drinking a Mojito so I guess we were pretty even on that score.

FaceTiming my wife wasn’t quite as successful… It was Sunday and she’d let the kids watch Netflix while she was trying to have a sleep in. When she answered, and said simply “Get f-----d” and then hung-up, I made a mental note to never call her so early again.

Ghan track
There’s a rough track which serves as a service road for the Adelaide to Alice Ghan Railway. Thanks again to Google Maps, I found a spot where the rails weren’t too far from the road and took a side track to drive on the dirt (something, something “authentic review”.... something, something “handsome but idiotic father of three found dead after rolling Chinese car while exceeding job brief”).

In fact it was really enjoyable and the Haval, despite earlier misgivings, was actually rather good. In the end, I overstayed my side track plan and nearly got tempted into crossing a dry salt lake…but even I’m not that stupid.

The Haval and I plotted a route around the lake to get back to the tarmac where sensible me was now insisting we stay until Coober Pedy.

Going underground
It’s a running joke for some in my family that I have claustrophobia. When I say “for some” I mean everyone but me.

Personally, I think it’s not a silly issue to have – shouldn’t everyone have a morbid fear of being crushed or trapped and unable to breathe? What some call it claustrophobia, I call “survival instinct”.

That my claustrophobia extends to my toddler sitting on my head and other things like a full on panic attack when a masseur gently placed a towel over my face is unimportant. Full face motorcycle helmets are a stretch…

My accommodation on Night Three therefore was the Comfort Inn Coober Pedy Experience. And by “experience” I mean “an underground hotel”.

I had decided I would definitely be fine. The nice lady showed me to my room. Naturally, I surveyed all of the exits like Jason Bourne and then went outside to get my luggage… Slowly.

I FaceTime’d the bride, who immediately and kindly reminded me I had a million tonnes of rock, dirt and worms above my head (payback for the early call) and yet again I went outside for a little look and a lot of fresh air.

With fond memories of John’s Pizza Bar from my last two-wheeled visit to Coober Pedy, I ordered a slightly bigger than needed capricciosa plus a six-pack from the bottle shop and retired to my room/cell.

Once I had the television on and was three beers deep, I began to think if the hotel hadn’t collapsed by now, maybe it wouldn’t ever collapse and certainly would not collapse on me that night… And leave me in a crushed bloody mess struggling for air while the rescuers dug in the wrong place and…

I drank the three other beers.

Home stretch
After a slightly later than expected start which required a full breakfast, two coffees and a Red Bull, I stopped for the obligatory photo at the ‘Welcome To Coober Pedy’ sign and made my run to Adelaide, suburbia, 50km/h speed limits and traffic.

As often happens on a long road trip, only when it’s coming to an end do you realise it’s actually been pretty great.

Arriving in Adelaide I began to think it would be pretty cool to just turn around and go north again, only this time take the Oodnadatta Track and then across to…

That’s the other thing about road trips. You often start planning the next as you end the current one.