Off road

A vehicle's ride and handling change on different surfaces. Logical, right?

When you’re parked at the base of 'Big Red', Australia’s tallest desert sand dune, the sandy obstacle looks bloody gigantic.

Rocks and rocky hills come in all shapes and sizes and varying degrees of difficulty – from large stony gravel tracks to slow-going boulder-sized obstacle courses.

Your 4x4 is an open ticket to a never-before-experienced world of off-road adventures. It has the bush-ready set-up (purpose-built engine and drivetrain with dual-range – high- and low-range – transfer case, suspension and more) aimed at getting you to places those with a two-wheel drive (2WD) or all-wheel drive

Whether you're going away for a weekend or a month, the principles of prepping your vehicle for an off-road trip remain the same: check it, fix it and carry spares.

Ruts, wheel tracks and wash-outs can be tricky; they can be shallow and easy to drive, or they can be deep and dangerous. But here are a few tips to help you get through them, no worries.

Is the Ford Escape 4wd or all wheel drive?

It's comfortable, capable and better looking than ever before, but is that enough to finally propel Mazda's BT-50 to a place in the upper echelon of Australia's dual-cab ute brigade?

QUEENSLAND'S history-soaked Condamine River is a steadfast contributor to the mighty Murray-Darling river system. But a 700-kilometre long river has to start somewhere and in this wandering waterway's headquarters on the slopes of the Great Divide you'll find a swag of adventure outings, almost on Brisbane's doorstep.

It's just one of those weekends - you know the ones. In the lead-up, while you're slaving away at work all week, the weather's bluebird perfection with sunny days and clear skies, warm days and gentle breezes. Then Friday arvo hits and, even though you're ready for a weekend camping, the southerly buster rolls in, threatens a month's load of rain in two days (Saturday and Sunday, of course) and drops the temperatures enough to make you question global warming again. This is an adventure just for those weekends. One that embraces the weather and still makes the most of the two days off.