NP300 Navara Review – Guest drivers, Garth & Ruth Smith Recently, we were fortunate enough to run the All-New NP300 Nissan Navara through its paces towing our 17 foot Jayco Sterling caravan on a two week tour of north western New South Wales. The trip saw us leave Port Macquarie on Friday 18 September heading for Lightning Ridge. Our first stop was Singleton on Friday night after a wet drive to get there. Several campers at the Singleton showgrounds commented on the Navara (might have had something to do with all that sign-writing on the side of it). The next day we had a long 8 hour drive – with several stops - to Burren Junction via Gunnedah where we met up with our good friends and travelling companions, Greg and Kim. We enjoyed our overnight stay at Burren Junction, doing a little bit of free camping and going to the Artesian Spas for relaxation. On Sunday morning we left for Lightning Ridge, the 160km trip an easy and comfortable one for us in the Navara. Ruth even had a drive and found it comfortable and easy to tow with. For the next 5 nights we were based at the Opal Caravan Park in Lightning Ridge, which we cannot recommend highly enough. Fabulous people and a great place to stay! We were right across the road from the Artesian Bore Baths, so once again we took advantage of these. From Lighting Ridge we did a couple of day tours, first was a road trip to 3 pubs, The Pub in the Scrub, The Sheepyard Flat Pub and an absolutely amazing lunch at the Glengarry Hilton (not the same as the Sydney Hilton, but the country hospitality makes up for anything else). On these days without the caravan, we set the trip meter on the Navara to test the fuel economy. These days included some highway driving and some dirt roads and we were pleasantly surprised at the 7.8L/ 100km that we were getting. Another thing we were really surprised by was the cost of Diesel out there – we averaged paying $1.30 a litre, which is a lot cheaper than home! We also visited the Beer Bottle house, the owner gave us a tour and a bit of a history lesson, a must see when in Lightning Ridge. John Oxley Nissan 130 Hastings River Drive, Port Macquarie NSW 2444 Phone: 02 6588 8555 www.johnoxleynissan.com.au Once our stay in Lightning Ridge was over we headed back for another night at Burren Junction, we really love that place. From there, off we headed to Tamworth, having a great feed of Chinese and camping on the Peel River. We then drove on to Chaffey Dam and set up camp for the next few nights. Another amazing camping site, only $5 per night with hot water, showers and amenities as well as fabulous swimming and fishing! We took the opportunity while we were here to set up a campfire and I was issued the challenge of making damper. With full gusto, I got into the bread making while the girls whipped up some cream and made lemon butter. Not bad for a camping trip! We enjoyed our time here and spent some time in the little town of Nundle – a really lovely little village with that warm country hospitality and another great pub lunch. Sadly, once this part of the trip was over it was time to head home, a short stop at Walcha for lunch and back down the 99 bends towards Port. Even the bends were not a challenge for the Navara. I’ve tried really hard to find something bad to say about the Navara, but really, that has been the greatest challenge of the trip. If I had to pick one thing it would be that I needed to adjust the windscreen washer jets to deal with all those outback bugs! Truly though, we really couldn’t find fault with the Navara, we simply loved it. We were especially happy with the following: Super comfortable in the cab – those long drives can be rough if the seating and cab room isn’t good, but this was perfect. We had Greg & Kim as passengers for a few of our day trips and they had plenty of room in the back as well. We were impressed with the towing, made the long drives effortless Fuel economy was fantastic – even towing our very full van we averaged 12.7L/ 100km and only used 284L of fuel for the trip The ute tray was fantastic for our day trips – made good use of it and had plenty of room for all our gear The automatic (I think they are called dusk sensing) headlights. Great for safety and good because sometimes if you’ve been driving through the day it’s hard to remember to put them on. Loved having the three 12v sockets throughout the cab – great when you’ve got multiple devices that all need charging at the same time, as they invariably do! John Oxley Nissan 130 Hastings River Drive Port Macquarie NSW 2444 Phone: 02 6588 8555 www.johnoxleynissan.com.au There are probably plenty more great things about the Navara, but too many to go into here. As a wrap up, our holiday was a fantastic trip away to amazing places with great friends, but made all the more special by having the opportunity to test drive the Navara in a real-life situation. Thanks to John Oxley Nissan for the opportunity to drive this great vehicle. Garth & Ruth Smith See more information about the All-New NP300 Navara here. John Oxley Nissan 130 Hastings River Drive Port Macquarie NSW 2444 Phone: 02 6588 8555 www.johnoxleynissan.com.au .