There aren't many parts of the world where you can legally drive down wide, empty, two lane roads at whatever speed you like - but the Northern Territory of Australia is one. So when Alfa Romeo Australia lent AutoSpeed an Alfa Spider TwinSpark for a week we decided to put it to the long distance test and completed nearly 4000 kilometres (2500 miles) in four days of long distance, high speed driving.
While the roads might be nearly empty of other cars, the bitumen of Outback Australia has some other major hazards. In the vast areas of the inland, huge stations (ranches, farms - insert your country's correct term!), each with areas of up to thousands of square kilometres, run beef cattle at very low stocking rates. You might not see any animals for dozens of kilometres, only to then see a small herd of five or ten animals sheltering from the fierce heat under some stunted trees.
So what does this have to do with driving? Just that you're in the paddock with the animals! There are no fences between the main highway and the paddock, so the cows and bulls can wander across the road as they wish. That makes driving at night very dangerous and even during the day, good observation skills are needed. And there's not only cattle to contend with.
Kangaroos and emus cross the road at will, while huge wedgetail eagles feed on the carcasses of animals knocked over by cars and trucks. These eagles have a wingspan of up to two metres; the idea of having one come through your windscreen doesn't bear thinking about....
Distances between towns - and they are often just a few houses with a single petrol outlet - are measured in hundreds of kilometres, while cattle grids, road trains (trucks with multiple trailers with a total length over 50 metres) and an absence of surface water are all extra hazards! But there is also a constant stream of light traffic, excellent road surfaces and the freedom to drive as fast as you like.
The Trip
The route that my lady Georgina and I took was from my home town of Adelaide in the south, up the only bitumen north-south road through the centre of Australia, turning west just before Alice Springs and travelling to Ayers Rock. This is a huge (3.3 square kilometres) sandstone monolith that stands hundreds of metres above the surrounding plain. Totally lacking in vegetation,
the rock changes colour as the sun moves through the sky and is an awesome sight. Not only is there the modern resort town of Yulara built nearby, but in terms of backgrounds for photographing a car, not much can beat the scenery in these areas. From Ayers Rock we travelled to Kings Canyon, before heading back the way we had come.
Because of budgetary reasons (read: no $$), we decided to camp rather than stay in hotels. This meant a lot of creative packing was needed; the Spider has one of the smallest boots I've ever seen in a car! Our shoes went into the small lockable compartment behind the seats, with the tent placed sideways across the car on top of this compartment. My tripod and the other camera gear went into the boot and was held in place by towels, a sleeping bag and air mattress. Jammed behind the seats were pillows, the tent poles and a toiletries bag. Everything fitted, but there was room for nothing more. The CDs - a late inclusion - had to be placed at Georgina's feet.
The distance from Adelaide to the Ayers Rock resort town of Yulara is 1629 kilometres - a 1000 miles. We decided to leave very early and complete the trip in one day, harder than it sounds because most of journey is through South Australian territory, a state that has a 110 km/h speed limit. In the northern parts of the state not many expect you to obey this limit, though....
We left Adelaide just after 3am, passing through the quiet, dark city. The main highway leading northwards to Port Augusta - 300 kilometres away and our first stop - was nearly deserted. Once out of the city of Adelaide, we passed just three other vehicles heading in the same direction in the three hours before the power station smokestacks at Port Augusta came into view.
From Augusta we again headed northwards, dawn breaking. This is a very dangerous time for kangaroos (and the cars that hit them!), as the 'roos tend to feed at dawn and dusk. Hitting a kangaroo at speed can severely damage a car - even push the front of the car back into the radiator. In a low car like the Alfa the 'roo might even come over the bonnet into the windscreen - not a nice thought. We kept our eyes peeled, seeing several 'roos, although none on the road itself.
The Pimba roadhouse - turn-off to Woomera - came and went. Woomera is a former rocket range - this country is so desolate that missiles and rockets have been test-fired over it for many years. In fact, the road passes through the range area itself, with signs to the effect that you are not permitted to leave the road. To do that you'd need a serious off-road four wheel drive, good supplies and water - so the casual motorist is unlikely to do so anyway!
Coober Pedy was the next stop, 537 kilometres from Port Augusta. However, before we arrived at Coober Pedy we drove along an airstrip. The cattle stations in much of central Australia are many hours drive from the nearest doctor and so for well over 70 years, the doctor has come by air. The Royal Flying Doctor Service uses light planes to fly in medical help and evacuate emergency patients. However, to land the aircraft, landing strips are needed. Often the runways are just rudimentary dirt strips, but 140km south of Coober Pedy the main highway has been converted to an emergency RFDS landing strip. Large signs warn drivers that they are about to reach the runway, which can be picked by the absence of roadside white posts and the slight widening of the road's shoulders. The beginning and end of the runway itself is marked by wide white stripes; it's not every day that you drive down an aircraft runway!
Coober Pedy is an opal mining town - the landscape for hundreds of square kilometres is marred by open earthworks, the pale soil from beneath the surface dragged up in thousands of mounds. The holes in the ground are so numerous that large signs warn tourists about the very real potential of falling down one! As well as being ugly, from our point of view Coober Pedy had another deficiency. From here northwards along our route, only normal unleaded petrol (not higher octane premium unleaded) fuel is available.
The sticker on the Spider's fuel filler flap states that 95 RON is the minimum octane fuel that the car can use, but we'd been told by Alfa that the knock sensor in the Bosch Motronic system would retard the timing appropriately on the poorer fuel. After putting 49.6 litres of fuel in the tank (130-140 km/h cruise at 9.2 litres/100 km) we listened carefully for the sounds of detonation. With none audible, I wound the Alfa back up to speed. While still nominally in a 110 km/h zone, by now we were far, far away from normal rural road traffic. Visibility was superb, the road wide, well-marked and flat. From Coober Pedy to the roadhouse at Erldunda is 481km and time was ticking away; we wanted to be setting up our tent in the Ayers Rock Yulara camping ground long before dark. I wound the car up to 140-150 km/h, the Alfa sitting superbly on the road.
One hundred kilometres before Erldunda we reached the border - the Northern Territory, where there are no open-road speed limits. The pamphlet produced by the NT Road Safety Council says "travel at a speed that suits the road, vehicle and weather conditions" and that's what I did, winding up the wick to 160 km/h for the last kilometres into Erldunda. The fuel consumption responded accordingly, increasing to 10.8 litres/100km. Erldunda is at the Stuart Highway turn-off to Ayers Rock - we were on the last leg, although still 260km away from the Rock's resort town of Yulara.
One hundred kilometres before Yulara, Mount Connor could be seen out to the left. A flat-topped mountain rising to 859 metres above sea level, like Ayers Rock this protrusion changes colour and appearance depending on the time of day and the weather. It was a welcome sight to us because it indicated that we were now getting close to our destination.
Outside it was getting hot; bloody hot. With the Alfa's excellent air con switched on continuously for many hours you tended not to notice it - but the engine sure did. With low octane fuel, a heavy load on board, an ambient temperature over 40 degrees Celsius and a lead foot, performance and fuel economy started to suffer. Power was well down - perhaps as much as 15 or 20 per cent - and with the terrain undulating, the Alfa was working hard. Near flat to the floor for much of the last leg, the fuel consumption came in at 12.1 litres/100 km, the second-worse figure we recorded.
Yulara
Thirteen and a half hours and 1629 kilometres after leaving Adelaide we reached Yulara. And it was even hotter there! The sun was so strong that the electric window switches on the Alfa's open doors were too hot to touch - we didn't even consider opening the roof. We erected the tent and inflated the air mattress in the blistering heat - then finally had time to take a town tour.
Yulara is a town of hire cars, camper vans and four wheel drives. The Acid Green Alfa Spider was a bolt from the blue, attracting attention from all that came close. In the camping ground we were sandwiched between a Toyota SR5, Suzuki Sierra and a Landcruiser, while Pulsars, Fiestas and Commodores hired from the local Connellan Airport were everywhere.
Complete with five hotels, two camping grounds, six restaurants and four bars, Yulara is an intriguing oasis in the desert. There's even a mini supermarket (the prices of the fresh fruit and vegetables an eye-opener!) and an auto teller. Tucked away from the main roads are the residential quarters for the staff - detached houses and long lines of apartments. At one of the houses we saw the only other interesting car in Yulara - a Northern Territory registered R33 Nissan Skyline GTS-T 2.5 turbo. The owner can probably do the 450-odd kilometre trip to Alice Springs in about two and half hours!
By the next evening it was cool enough that the Alfa's top could be electrically retracted. Ayers Rock is 17 kilometres away from Yulara, with access by an excellent bitumen road. Topless dusk cruising of these roads was just superb. In fact, in the whole automotive world there can be few more exhilarating moments than driving in an open car along the road around the base of Ayers Rock, red monolith towering over you on the left, a brilliant sunset filling the huge sky on the right.
Kings Canyon
After two nights it was time to move on. We re-packed the Spider and headed back down the road we had come, turning off after about 150km to travel to Kings Canyon. Another resort community situated in totally isolated country, this township boasts an even better camping ground than Yulara! It's located about 300km from Yulara and (in the speed limit-less Territory) we were able to casually dispatch this leg at 130 - 150 km/h.
The tourist attraction is a giant canyon carved by nature through sandstone, giving a 300 metre drop to the valley floor along with spectacular scenery. The best views are accessible only by walking - a 6km trek completed at dawn before it becomes too hot. Other than looking at the canyon, there isn't an awful lot to do besides sitting by the large, salt water swimming pool at the resort! Ahhh, one day off at least!
At both Yulara and Kings Canyon there were busloads of overseas tourists; in fact I heard more foreign accents than anywhere else I've been to in Australia. While at Kings Canyon a man from Holland approached me - he wanted to talk about the Alfa. It turned out that he had a Sixties Alfa GTV back home, one that had been equipped with high compression pistons, hot cams ("Er, race cams - you understand?") and developed 160hp. He also owned a Civic VTiR and was about to buy an Integra Type R - so we had lots to talk about! In fact, everywhere we went, the Spider fascinated people - more so than any other car I've driven. It was partly the environmental context - with the exception of the Skyline, we didn't see another performance car on the whole trip. Just those hire cars, Landcruisers and beat-up Falcons and Holdens....
Going Home
We left Kings Canyon a day later at 6.30am - it needed to be light so that we could see any walking or hopping road hazards, and it didn't matter if we arrived back in Adelaide well after dark. Petrol at Kings Canyon was the most expensive that we saw on the trip - 99.8 cents a litre. In addition to the transport costs of getting the fuel to the settlement, there's not a lot of competition....
Just after Kings Canyon we crossed a creek, one of dozens that we passed during the journey. Like all of the rivers in the area, at this time of year it was completely dry. However, in times of sudden rainfall, these channels can become swollen torrents of water, perhaps 50 metres wide. Rather than build a very large and expensive bridge that might be needed only four or five days a year, the NT Government simply strengthens the road surface so that a ford is created. When the river is very high, the road becomes impassable.
While the scenery on the Stuart Highway is much the same kilometre after kilometre, the monotony is occasionally broken by the presence of microwave or solar cell towers. The telecommunications links to the north of Australia comprises both microwave telephone and optical fibre links. The optical fibre repeater stations are powered by solar cells, with the arrays mounted on tall towers. The presence of the communication links also makes it viable to provide emergency telephones every 50 or 100 kilometres along the road.
Then it happened. On the return trip we'd seen little wildlife - just the normal numbers of hawks, eagles, and cattle. No roos and no emus. But all of a sudden there they were - a gaggle of emus, standing 2 metres tall on the edge of the road, heads darting on their elongated necks. Weighing in at perhaps 100kg each, these birds aren't like pet budgies. And the impact when they decide to sprint out from the side of the road - straight into the side of the Alfa - wasn't too light-weight either! There was a thump! and then we were past, pulling to the side of the road to inspect the damage. In addition to emu feathers wrapped around the Pininfarina badge (how's that for a clash of cultures?) there was a dent as large as my hand in the passenger side
door and a scratch down the side of the paintwork. Not what you want to have happen to a borrowed A$66,000 car..... But once it was there, it wasn't going to go away, so we continued.
We'd been warned by people at Kings Canyon that the Marla police (just over the border in South Australia) had a patrol car out and were gleefully catching people speeding down from the Northern Territory, so I pedalled along gently. In this situation you wait for someone travelling quickly than to pass you. Then you can tuck in behind, using the other car as a police radar shield and also letting them run into the cows first! Unfortunately no-one offered themselves as such a sacrifice until we reached Pimba. There a Ford Mondeo came up quickly behind us, passing the Alfa which was travelling at a conservative 120. I followed him down hill and up dale, as he wound the Ford out to its utmost, sitting on 170 and doing 190 down the hills. When he realised I was going to hang on no matter what, he slowed to 130-140 km/h, a safe and sensible cruising speed in the conditions. I was glad that he did for another reason - the Alfa at full throttle was using petrol at a rate that meant we would have had to button off or we would have run out before the next town!
From there the trip back to Adelaide was uneventful.
We'd travelled 4063km at an average fuel consumption of 10.4 litres/100 km (~27 miles per Imperial gallon). The car had been comfortable, fast, easy to drive and had developed no problems. The scenery had in parts been breathtaking, while somewhere in there we'd also had time for a holiday!
Next week: A full road test of the Alfa Spider TwinSpark
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