MINI D: Pedal to the mettle

I haven't told Muttley this, but when it comes to long trips in cars, I am touched by the hand of the devil.

Examples? The abortive not-even-near attempt on the Strez... Strzl... dammit, what's that track called? Near the top right-hand corner of South Australia? You know the one -- gets you to Cameron's Corner and Tibooburra... When you're in, like, a Unimog full of SAS troops... If you're lucky!

We were in a Datsun 1200. With a pup tent, a Mini Maglite, a double sleeping bag, Glen 20 (which my beloved kept beside her at night for some reason) and a plastic shopping bag full of Paddy Pallin super-lightweight freeze dried one-pot meals. Oh, and a hard-frozen two-litre bottle of grapefruit juice to keep the Moskovskaya chilled.

The Datsun first broke down in a place that looked like Mars but was in fact somewhere north of the middle of South Australia. And many times more on the way back down to the Barrier Highway, up through Broken Hill via Mootwingee and a back route parallelling the Silver City Highway to another back route connecting Tibooburra and White Cliffs...

All to get to a town boasting a gene pool that put the most offensive Tasmanian jokes to shame. A town with a flypaper tourism strategy.

With the Datto on what sounded like its last legs and gasping for some TLC, the only mechanic in town squinted and traced duckies and horsies in the sky with his forefinger as the university dickheads from the big smoke poured forth their tale of mechanical woe. Then he turned around, climbed into his truck and drove off down to the Hill for four days.

Then there was the head gasket replacement in the Nadgee ranger's garage, middle of nowhere between Eden and Mallacoota. No, really.

Long story shortish, I'm glad someone else has come up with the itinerary for my Follow The Mini cross-country sojourn with Muttley.

Part of the rationale for the trip is to report back on whether this small car can do the work of a big car. Or something bigger, even. Most people who gobble up somewhere between 4500 and 5000km in six days do it with the help of a 16-litre engine putting out hundreds of kilowatts and a couple of thousand Newton metres. And when it comes time to stop, they have a bedroom behind the driver's seat.

I'm sure I speak for Muttley as well in saying I'm glad the Mini D doesn't have a bedroom behind the driver's seat.

What it does have in common with those big trucks, though, is a diesel engine. Okay, it's only a 1.6 and it only puts out 80kW. But that's not what counts on jaunts like this. The more useful figure is the 240Nm of torque -- very healthy for a littlie like this, and guaranteed to help make the drive a lot easier and more relaxing.

I suspect we'll need all the help we can get there. Even with two of us able to share the wheel time, that's quite the marathon.

LOOSE PLANS
Big enough that we need to keep the plans pretty loose. The only accommodation we have booked is at Eucla. You don't want to pull in the night before the cross-Nullarbor stretch to Kalgoorlie and find the place is booked out. Particularly after spending the day pretty much crossing South Australia.

The ride starts fairly late into Sunday (May 24), with a 3:00pm wave goodbye from the Mini AUnited event at Sydney's Harold Park. From there it's off down the Princes Highway for a few hours. The idea was to try and make Eden, but that's not likely. As I write this, the weather's not looking too amenable, for a start.

But the first several days of the trip are relatively light. The idea was we'd cover the 500km to Eden first day. But even if we only make Bega or even Batemans, there's plenty of room to make it up next day or two.

Be nice to spend some daytime in those parts, though. It's important to get a shot of the Big Cheese at Bega. If it's the Big Cheese I remember, I reckon it's up for some kind of tourism industry award for Australia's least prepossessing Big Thing. Imagine a 44-gallon drum painted in green and yellow with 'Bega' written on it in red and you've pretty much captured it in all its stunning spectacle.

Monday's given to the rest of the Princes via Lakes Entrance, ending up at Sorrento for the ferry ride over to Queenscliff to spend the night in Geelong or thereabouts. Google Maps tells us it's 627km that way from Eden to Geelong. On some of those roads, that's a big day.

Tuesday we take in one of the nation's great drives. The last time I travelled Victoria's Great Ocean Road, I came away not able to work out why everyone raved about it so much. The only break to the monotony was a go at the nipple every couple of hours. Most of it just looked like the roof lining of my parents' Volkswagen.

This is the ideal stretch on which to test the BMW Mini's mettle as spiritual successor to the original Mini. It's a road made for gokarts.

If all goes according to the suggestions of experts, we'll make Mt Gambier that night. It's just under 500km, but there's plenty of prospective diversion in the Twelve Apostles, shipwreck stuff at Warrnambool, the stone walls of the Western Districts and Mt Gambier's volcanic Blue Lake. Big day for Muttley the lensman, I suspect.

Wednesday, it's round the Coorong -- the lagoon forming the mouth of the Murray looked on as one of the world's great natural wonders. I've never seen it before, except in Storm Boy, so I'm grateful to get a look in before it's gone. Which it will be -- a victim of the death by thirst of the Murray-Darling river system.

After that it's on through Murray Bridge and the wine valleys to Port Augusta. Sorry Adelaide -- bummer we don't get to take the D through the driver's-paradise hills on your outskirts.

Thursday ups the driving demands with the 960 kay Nullarbor run, along the cliffs of the Bight to Eucla. Photo opportunities aplenty.

By now we'll have a fair idea, but this will be the drive that tests the D's abilities as a distance tourer. Make a run like this in a Lexus or an E-Class and you'll likely emerge daisy fresh and ready for a vigorous night's honeymooning. Do the same thing in a sub-$20K littlie and you'll end the day dog tired but too wired to sleep. But the D isn't your average shopping trolley, or so I'm led to believe. You'll know about it soon, one way or the other.

Friday's another big one -- 900km to Kalgoorlie. By now I suspect Muttley will be shooting and I'll blogging and Twittering more by reflex than with any presence of mind.

Saturday morning we wake up with 600km to go. Which we have to cover in time for a slap on the back and something cold from the MINI people (no silly, not midgets -- MINI club and dealership people) in Perth. After which we will either sleep the sleep of the dead or lie in our hotel beds tired but wired. A lot of it depends on the car.

When I was about seven, we used to go on holidays at Shoal Bay in Port Stephens, a couple of hours north of Newcastle. So did rallying legend Gelignite (or Jellynight, as my brother called him) Jack Murray, who used to tear around on water skis towed by a low slung speedboat full of adoring girls in bikinis.

"He's way too old to be doing that," the old fisherman my folks befriended used to say.

I'm hoping all this driving will pay off in the same way one day.

From Saturday, May 23 you'll be able to visit our MINI D adventure minisite here.

You can also read our launch review of the most surprising green car of this year here.