MINI D blog: a man's got to know his limitations

Don't want to speak too soon -- we haven't made it yet but we've broken its back. Thursday was probably the hardest day's driving I've ever done. And I only did an hour's worth of it…

The whole story starts the day before, in the SA cray town of Robe. We liked it so much there we didn't get out of town till late morning. Which was silly because we had 750km or something to go to reach Port Augusta via the Coorong, Murray Bridge and Clare.

After dinner in Clare, we made Port Augusta at 10.30pm or something, only to find the entire town's accommodation booked out for a BHP conference. The very nice girl at the Can'tremembernow Motel rang around and found us the last place anywhere in town, a rather ordinary two-bedroom unit in a nearby camping joint.

By the time I'd settled in, showered and posted my blog stuff with Muttley's pics it was going on 2am. I woke next morning feeling like the bed had slept on me, so Mutts volunteered to put in the morning's driving on our first really big day.

Another not-good thing: I can put in a good few hours at the wheel in the morning, but come afternoon… Well, suffice to say I've always been a big fan of the siesta and Judge Judy, so it didn't take long behind the wheel for me to be getting heavy-lidded, easily distracted and short on judgement.

Add the anxiety to get a long way in a short time and you have the perfect setup for an overtaking manoeuvre that didn't go according to plan.

Pulling out behind the megatruck, I was half way round when we went into a gentle left-hand bend and I found us heading for a car coming in the opposite direction. It wasn't a near miss -- I barely had to brake to get back in behind -- but it was pretty clear I shouldn't have been there, or indeed even at the wheel.

We swapped back, only to have Muttley pick up a $202 slug from the local constabulary a short time later, again amid a sense of long-way-short-time.

After a bit of squabbling, recrimination and sulking things settled and we made the Eucla Motor Hotel. I was asleep before the end of The 7.30 Report and remained dead until morning.

I learned something from that day to which I'm not comfortable fessing up: I'm not that good a driver. Or at least, I can now see multiple flaws in the way I relate to a motor car. One of which is about the struggle my ego has in owning up to those flaws and handing the thing over.

Funny, considering the number of times I've heard Harry Callaghan sum it up -- a man's got to know his limitations. I wonder how many men have killed how many other people in motor cars not heeding that advice.

Today [Ed: Friday] was heaps different. I went into it with a sense that yesterday was the day we all learned we're not bigger than the rules. So from the moment I climbed behind the wheel at 8.00am this morning, I was happy to set the cruise to the 110km/h speed limit and stay there -- no matter how open and wide and inviting the road.

And open, wide and inviting it was. After lunch at theCaiguna roadhouse, Muttley took the 90 Mile Straight. That's 146 km of the purest dullness ever painted in tar.

But funnily enough, it was a really relaxing day. Half the 900-odd kilometres each. No arguments. No gruff-and-grumpy. Not a metre-per-hour over the speed limit anywhere -- which was lucky, because there were wallopers everywhere. the opener to the Foundation Day long weekend in WA.. We're been RBTd twice today.

Noticeable, too, was the lack of roadside shrines. Strange, given the rattly VN that came barrelling past us at what was an easy 180km/h.

SA did a real job on them. They stick up coloured posts at accident spots -- black with a white cross for a fatality, red for an injury. They're eerie --far more effective than flowers and other stuff left by family and friends.

They're official. Someone Died A Horrible Death Here.

Okay, comments on the D... For a small car it's remarkably good on a big job like this.

BMW/MINI has done a very good job at updating the orginal Mini ambience with that huge central speedo, that oddly upright little windscreen and slabby side windows. If memory serves, Steve Ottley commented on the noisy wipers in the rain at speed. If he did, he's right. But they do a good job.

Bit of a thumbs-down on the road noise front. A few hours on coarse tar can get pretty stressful. We're also not one bit impressed that Mini sent us off on a trip like this without runflat tyres and without a spare.

A fellow at the WA border quarantine station was telling us that kangaroo bones can pierce a truck tyre. And today we stopped at a lookout with some very rough stuff indeed. If we'd blown a tyre (sorry, there's tomorrow yet so if we blow a tyre) we're in trouble.

Now I've worked in PR and I'm not a very competent PR man, and even I can tell that somewhere in here is a PR disaster just waiting to happen. All the more so considering the almost total absence of mobile phone connection on the Eyre Highway…

Even Telstra's only available in tiny patches, and then only Next G. Not Muttley's stock Telstra GSM and certainly not my Voda. We've been off the air for almost 48 hours, From Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie.

I doubt there's a single Mini in Australia right now that more warrants being fitted with runflats. Was it really that hard?

We had an odd fuel-fill problem in Norseman, too. It didn't take long at all to establish the D's filler is not made to take fast-fill diesel nozzles. They are, after all, for trucks that take a couple of hundred gallons. Put a fast-fill into a 40-litre tank and you'll end up drenched from head to toe in seconds.

But what's with the protective metal epiglottis's refusal to give way to the unusually narrow nozzle at a BP station? Try as we might, nothing worked. Thankfully, it got on fine with the nozzle at the Caltex nearby.

Other stuff? Here's one the MINI people will love: so much mileage do you get out of a tank that it's easy to get complacent in the face of low-fuel warnings. When the fuel gauge lights go red and the little bowser appears on the tacho, you just ignore it because you know you've got a couple of hundred kays' grace.

Problematic, maybe, but it's not a problem I'd be laying at the feet of the manufacturer to fix.

And this is not a problem, but we're intrigued by the fine zig-zaggy lines down the windscreen? Are they trying to make it somehow reminiscent of quality knitwear?

Last but not least, a small problem with the radio. I can reliably inform you that the Jono and Danno show is as execrable on Esperance 747AM as it is on TripleM in Sydney and Melbourne.

Please, please, Ian Rogerson, I'm sure it's working wonders to replenish your super account, but we've all suffered similarly under the aegis of the global financial crisis.

Go back to the ABC, where you so belong.

Thuh. End.

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