Travel: Nissan Patrol to Arkaroola

An elfin with a giant’s heart, Doug is the landholder at Arkaroola, a 637 square-kilometre eco-resort and wildlife conservation sanctuary in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia.

But Doug is undoubtedly better known in off-roading circles as the youngest member of the Sprigg family that made the first-ever motorised crossing of the Simpson Desert in 1962 in a Nissan G60 Patrol.

Which is why, 56 years on, we’ve come to Arkaroola to find Doug and give him a steer of the latest Y62 Nissan Patrol, a vehicle that shares little beyond its off-road conquering concept with the G60.

And when we say little, we mean very little…

The G60 came with a 92kW 4.0-litre inline petrol six-cylinder engine, part-time four-wheel drive, three-speed manual gearbox with low-range, drum brakes, unassisted worm-and-roller steering, live axles and leaf springs.

It seated all four Spriggs across its front bench seat for the journey.

Our top-spec 2018 Nissan Patrol Ti-L has three rows of seats, comes with a 298kW 5.6-litre V8, dual-range dial-selectable 4WD, seven-speed automatic transmission, disc brakes, power-assisted steering and Hydraulic Body Motion Control (HBMC) suspension. Oh yeah, and it retails for $88,990 (plus on-road costs).

Sat-nav, Bluetooth, rear screens and tri-zone climate control are also part of the latest Patrol’s extensive equipment list. By contrast, you opened the air vents or wound the windows down in the GQ if you wanted air flow!

So different, yet there is one common element that has condemned the Y62 to sales irrelevance compared to its Y61 predecessor and the Toyota LandCruiser that is its full-size SUV competition: a petrol engine.

Yes, without a diesel the Y62 simply has not been able to attract the towers and off-roaders the way the LandCruiser continues to. It’s so big and heavy that even with a 140-litre fuel tank you’ll struggle to get 1000km from a fuel load.

That’s based on the official 14.4L/100km average fuel consumption figure, but good luck with achieving that -- especially if you’re towing or chucking it into low range…

But that doesn’t mean Doug isn’t keen to give the Y62 a go. In fact, just the opposite. He continues to have a soft spot for Patrols.

“The Nissan was the one that came through unscathed,” he recalls from the 1962 trip.

“There were two Toyotas and an International Scout on the trip as well.

“The Scout didn’t make it under its own steam, but the two Toyotas -- one was a three-speed gearbox and low range, the other was a four-speed with no low range – had gearbox issues. But they got through.”

It took 11 days for the Spriggs to cross 1100 sand dunes west to east in 1962. There was no track to follow; Doug’s father Reg navigated via a sextant and aerial photos.

There were punctures galore and the Patrol regularly got hung up on spinifex. Reg and wife Griselda, along with Doug (then just seven) and his older sister Marg, would then scramble to get it loose before the red-hot exhaust set the bush alight!

In 2012 Doug and Marg celebrated the 50th anniversary of their great adventure by driving a G60 across the Simpson again.

“Going back 50 years later really impressed on me how remarkable it was that the G60 Nissan went all the way across the desert without any trouble at all,” remarked Doug.

He says even today few Patrols and ‘Cruisers end up at Arkaroola needing repairs, even though Nissan and Toyota dominate the tourist vehicle count out here.

“We are yet to see one of these in our workshop,” he adds, pointing towards the Y62. “So that speaks incredibly well for it.”

It also might say a little but about the Patrol’s slow sales rate…

Fifty-six years on, how far have we come? Maybe outright off-road ability hasn’t changed that much, but comfort is a whole different story.

Ensconced deep in leather, chrome and push-button luxury, that’s what Doug is revelling in as we head off for a drive of some of Arkaroola’s more challenging tracks.

“The track feels flatter in this than anything else,” he laughs as we effortlessly clamber up and then down a steep, loose hillside, without resorting to 4Low or locking any diffs.

Then we’re rolling along a valley floor, over washouts and through sharp looking rock gardens – we’ve twice been punctured on our way up here from Adelaide and we don’t want any more failures – but the Dunlops survive unscathed.

We’d driven the 600km from Adelaide on a huge variety of roads that ranged from freeways, to tar and dirt country highways and then navigated gravel tracks, both well-formed and rugged.

The Patrol had dealt with everything calmly and confidently. OK. it’s not the best choice for the daily inner-city commute, but it certainly showed itself to be a luxurious and immensely capable Outback blaster. For simply getting in and driving, it was the vehicle in our convoy that everyone enjoyed.

It’s quiet, it rides over the bumps and stutters of a typical Outback road very smoothly, and it’s got immense power from its V8 engine.

“The G60 has been my sort of vehicle -- is my sort of vehicle until now -- but the Y62 … is just incredible,” Doug says, obviously impressed.

“The ride really impressed me. I’ve been in another vehicle of the same sort of class, but this beats it hands down in comfort.

“Yet it hangs on to the road at speed and four-wheel drive makes it incredibly easy.”

On top of one hill sits an observatory which is being further developed. Doug is a passionate astronomer, a love formed lying under the stars on that 1962 trip.

“We host a lot of older people here who can’t see as well as younger people because of macular degeneration and cataracts and so on,” he explains.

“They can’t see so well through telescopes, so we are building a new automated observatory giving us images almost in real time of deep space objects.

“We want people to stay connected to the telescope and see where it’s pointing, but they can see the images come up on the screen, which I think works well.”

Arkaroola plays host to school groups as well. Doug says 25 per cent of these Year 10 students convert from the arts to the sciences after their visit.

Arkaroola was a sheep station. But Reg, a famed explorer and geologist, purchased the property in 1968. He first visited as a student of Professor Douglas Mawson (later Sir Douglas) in 1939.

Like his mentor, he fell in love with the place for its age, beauty, flora, fauna and rock and mineral diversity.

When Reg retired Doug and his older sister Marg took over. Nowadays Marg is retired and Doug’s son Mark has stepped in to help hid dad. Doug candidly admits it’s a battle to survive but the passion for the place keeps them there.

“It’s a remote place and that puts some people off,” says Doug. “But in another way that’s good because you don’t get people coming here who are just bored.

“They choose to come to places like this. It’s a conscious decision. They are more interesting and more interested in what they are seeing. They are using the vehicle to explore rather than just conquer.”

Which brings up back to Y62 Patrol. It’s definitely a vehicle for doing either … just bring plenty of unleaded with you.