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  The Pajero was very comfortable and competent for the long haul to places where the bitumen ends and travellers are few. (picture courtesy of David Kelly) Photo Gallery

Three blokes. One week. One wagon. 3500 kilometres and a bit to the corner country and back. No fish. Not even a yabby to boil.

But there were sights and sounds to delight, beers and laughs around campfires in far-flung corners under endless skies. There were long, sometimes flint-hard, sometimes bull-dusted, roads to follow. Emus run alongside lonely tracks, dingoes trot away with disdain and roos look askance at the passing machine, spitting and spewing gibbers in constant clatter. Eagles lift high from sand dunes, a murder of crows fly over hectare upon hectare of yellow wildflowers stretching to sand dunes.

There were cooks missing from Cunnamulla hotels (“tell the truth … he got the shits and left"), a busload of name-tagged tourists at the Dig Tree and guests driving an hour for a starlit dinner in the desert outside Birdsville. There were birds of many shapes and colours, pelicans to grebes to hawks and galahs. And always, from morning to camp, there was the Pajero.

Crowned king of the four-wheel drives by Overlander and 4X4 Australia magazines in the last flurry of annual awards this was one long run to double check the Mitsubishi wagon's credentials. Again. After 25 years in Australia the Pajero has proved itself a stayer _ maybe not always a rough and tumble machine for mining companies but always a good machine for exploring the land with comfort and style.

It was loaded, the diesel wagon. Packed with swags, the esky, camp oven and all manner of gear for overnighting away from the lights of town. Two small inflatables for the Diamantina River. Paints and easel for inspired artists. Yabby pots and fishing lines for disinterested river creatures.

It all fitted. Just. With two-thirds of the back seat left for a most comfortable spot for the second passenger. And here, with the back stacked high, the VRX Pajero's optional reversing camera comes in handy. The VRX version of the five-door wagon arrives with a slew of safety, comfort and convenience features from heated front (leather) seats to side airbags and navigation system.

Otherwise this Mitsubishi was unadorned. No front bar, no extra lights nor radio transmitter. Reasons to be setting up camp and having a beer before the sun sinks low for the day and wildlife wanders out to graze.

There was still enough weight to carry but the 3.2 litre turbocharged diesel, if sounding a little raspy at the top end, works well with the five-speed automatic. There is 147kW of power and 414Nm of torque to play with; still best to slip the transmission into sports mode and manually change down for rounding up road trains and dawdling caravanners.

The dirt roads into Innamincka from the east, the Cordillo Downs Road through the Strzelecki Desert and then the Development Road into Birdsville were, in large part, in good shape. In some areas it was a loping 110km/h, slowing for rougher bits and floodways but always riding with suppleness. This lifts fuel consumption a bit, this slowing and accelerating over surfaces where those 18-inch Dunlops sometimes lose a little in the scrabble for traction.

(The Pajero's being running in two-wheel drive across these never-ending plains; it is easy enough to slip into four-wheel action but that seems a bit superfluous just yet. Mitsubishi's electronic driver aids allow a decent amount of slip and slide before correcting the vehicle.) To now, on those long runs of bitumen through mulga country to reach this far corner, the Mitsubishi's been cruising as low as 10.5 litres per 100 kilometres, a fair price for a decent load and 110km/h running.

It takes some 1300 kilometres from town to find the dirt. On the run from Innamincka up to Birdsville the average speed drops to 75km/h and fuel consumption lifts to 13.9 litres per 100km according to the trip computer. And that's the worst it got, even down the track and over the sand dunes and across the clay pans to a secret camp beside the Diamantina River, broad and proud at this particular point.

The computer tells us (among other things such as a three degree morning in the desert) that out here the wagon is 50 metres below sea level. (Later, back at the Dividing Range, the altimeter records the wagon at better than 600m.) The three blokes need little of this information once in the end camp, a place of splendid isolation.

Here was time to stare at stars, talk to galahs. Time to throw fruitless fishing lines at the coffee-coloured river, time for dabbling with paint brushes and canvas, cooking four-star meals in camp ovens and drinking beer as the sun sets across the dunes.

All this made possible by a little bit of driving and a decent wagon which carried its loads - from four-lane bitumen to trackless desert sands -without complaint. (There was just the one mishap where, with too much of a yank to close the back door on an uphill slope, the stay to hold the door was broken.) The Mitsubishi was a most comfortable, a most competent machine for three men and that long haul to places where the bitumen ends and travellers are few.

It makes a most amiable travelling companion. There are other fine four-wheel drive wagons to conquer these desert roads but the Pajero is one of the best all-rounders for getting away from it all. Maybe others, more SUV types, steer a little better. Maybe some of the others (think LandCruiser ute) are more suited to day-to-day off-roading in rugged conditions where dings and dents don't count. But the Pajero is as happy running down to the local store or carting the kids to see grandma as it is running down the tracks of Birdsville.

MITSUBISHI PAJERO VRX
Body: Five-door wagon
Engine: 3.2 litre diesel
Power: 147kW @ 3800rpm
Torque: 414Nm @ 2000rpm
Transmission: Five-speed automatic
Weight: 2324kg
Recommended retail price (before statutory and dealer charges): $67,990 (Multi communication system with rear-view camera: $2500)