Life is about the journey, not just the destination – as someone famous probably said. The past 12 months have taken Region’s motoring writer James Coleman to places all over Australia’s south-east, from the Gold Coast all the way to the South Australian desert – with a couple of wineries thrown in for good measure (rest assured: legal limits were adhered to). Here’s what he learnt, so you can add a few locations to your travel bucket list. Or not.
11. Lakes Entrance, Victoria – in the Ford Ranger Tremor
The 2025 Ford Ranger Tremor posing on a boat ramp at Lakes Entrance. Photo: James Coleman.
The Ford Ranger was Australia’s best-selling car for the second year running in 2024, with 62,953 sold. And after running away to Lakes Entrance in Victoria for a Canberra Day long weekend family camping trip, I think I know where they all went.
Ford Australia loaned me one for the journey so I could get to the bottom of the allure this 4WD ute clearly possesses, but this is not just any Ranger. This is the new “Tremor” version – basically a cut-price Raptor and limited to only 1150 units.
But even with my bright-orange Tremor badging and the extra beefy off-road kit, I’m struggling to attract any attention.
10. The Sunshine Coast – in the Mazda CX-80
Overlooking Tweed Heads in the Mazda CX-80 Touring. Photo: James Coleman.
Apart from the slightly pebbly sand and the deep ledges carved into the tops of the beaches, it’s hard to tell that the Gold Coast was recently hit by a category-2 cyclone.
Mind you, judging by the traffic that descended on the place over the Easter long weekend, this clearly isn’t much of a secret.
Every man and his dog and their surfboards are here. We’re talking bumper-to-bumper and barely exceeding 60 km/h between Brisbane and Tweed Heads.
9. The Brindabellas – in the INEOS Grenadier Quartermaster
Glorious – and very slippery – mud. Photo: James Coleman.
$136K, no legroom in the back and steering like it’s full of yoghurt – but damn, it looks cool. The INEOS Grenadier Quartermaster is the ultimate (if not perfect) off-roader.
Like many Canberrans, I embarked on an expedition into the Brindabella Ranges after one of its biggest snow dumps in years.
As far as I can make out, the Brindabellas are entirely made of clay, meaning as soon as this clay gets slightly damp, the whole thing turns into an ice-skating rink.
8. The first highway between Canberra and Sydney – in the Isuzu D-Max
Towrang Bridge, built in the late 1830s by convicts. Photo: Goulburn Australia.
Built by convicts – and loved by bushrangers – the Great South Road was the main road between Goulburn and Sydney for over 100 years.
You’ll have heard how the route between Sydney and Melbourne is one of the busiest domestic air lanes in the world. Some 9,217,377 passengers reportedly flew between the two cities in 2024.
So it’s little wonder a portion of this route was also among the first to be connected by highway.
You’ll know it as the wide and sweeping Hume Highway today, but back during the 1800s, the road snaking its way between Picton, near Sydney, and Goulburn (and from there, eventually on to Melbourne) was called the Great South Road.
7. What’s left of Goulburn’s convict camp – in the Mazda BT-50
Where the explosives used to be kept to build the first road between Canberra and Sydney. Photo: James Coleman.
Carving out the first road between Sydney and Melbourne took years of hard slogging – fortunately, NSW had just the workforce to do it.
Just north of Goulburn on the Hume Highway is what remains of the Towrang Stockade, the chief penal camp for the state in the mid-1800s.
Up to 250 convict men were housed here, charged with constructing the section of the Great South Road between Sydney and Goulburn – the rough and ready predecessor to today’s dual-carriageway highway.
6. The snow – also in the Mazda BT-50
The Mazda BT-50 SP in Siberia (for real). Photo: James Coleman.
Note from a rookie to other rookies: if you’re planning to head to the snow on a weekend, leave Canberra well before 7 am.
We made the mistake of passing Royalla on the Monaro Highway at 7:30 am. So we hadn’t even reached the gate to Kosciuszko National Park two hours later before we hit a line of cars and at the front of it, a crew of traffic controllers turning everyone around because car parks at Thredbo and Perisher were packed full.
The woman in high-vis only agreed to wave us through when we mentioned we were continuing on past the car parks to Tom Groggin. But we ended up stopping near Siberia, which is actually closer and nicer than it sounds – just a few kilometres further along Alpine Way and not, in fact, gulags in the Arctic Circle.
5. Pialligo Estate – in the BMW X3
We joined Canberra BMW on a visit to the freshly renovated Pialligo Estate. Photo: James Coleman.
Looking at the car in the photo today, the acronym is on the tip of your tongue – but don’t say it. According to the press release, the new BMW X3 is not an SUV – it is in fact a SAV, or Sports Activity Vehicle.
What’s the difference? No idea, because it still clearly has Sports Utility Vehicle things like a higher ride height, an ultra spacious boot and seats for five people.
But this title wouldn’t be the only gratuitous, superfluous, entirely not-necessary flight of fancy on this car.
That would be the front grille that lights up at night around its outline – because nostrils never receive enough attention.
4. The US Embassy – in the Cadillac Lyriq
Charge d’Affairs Erika Olson has been on post at Canberra’s US Embassy since 2023. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Cadillac entered the Australian market for the first time with a fancy new electric SUV.
At one point travelling along the highway between Canberra and Sydney after picking up this test car, there was no-one else on the road save for a Chevrolet Silverado ahead, a Dodge RAM in my rear-view mirror and me in the middle – in the Cadillac.
And I realised this might be the future.
We often assume the Chinese are coming for the Aussie car market – and it’s true they currently sell about 15 brands here, or more than they did 30 seconds ago. But it’s just as true a rival’s rising in the west.
3. Tweed Heads, NSW – in the Ford Tourneo
The Ford Tourneo is the first people mover Ford has ever sold in Australia – and it wants a piece of the Kia Carnival. Photo: James Coleman.
Ford is entering the people-mover fray in Australia for the first time with its very van-shaped Tourneo.
In the right car, the road to Twin Falls in Queensland’s Springbrook National Park would be motoring nirvana.
Leafy trees huddling over tight hairpins, breaking every so often for views down the valley before dropping away entirely as the horizon turns into the sea.
But I’m in very much not the right car. I’m in a van – about as van as it gets. Still, when you’re hauling two kids and the in-laws on a Gold Coast holiday, needs must.
2. Shaw Estate, Murrumbatemen – in a fleet of new Minis
On the road to Shaw Estate. Photo: Jon Havelock Photography.
I’m not sure I’ll be taking the Barton Highway to Murrumbateman ever again.
Leaving aside the annoying fact that taxpayers put in $500 million to duplicate the highway, only for the designers to leave a short section of single lane on the ACT side, there are simply better roads.
For instance, Murrumbatemen Road – a stretch of rolling country tarmac between Gundaroo and, in our case, Shaw Estate Winery.
1. Flinders Ranges – in the Kia Carnival
The Kia Carnival GT-Line Hybrid on Flinders Ranges Way, where there are apparently many small children. Photo: James Coleman.
It sounds pitiable, but I spent most of the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in this car.
According to the maps, Port Augusta is 1300 km – or 14 hours – from Canberra via one of the most boring highways on earth. You could dumbfound a flat-earther on the Hay Plains in NSW, for instance, by how you can’t see Perth between the anthills.
But once there, add in side quests to some of the most beautiful beaches on earth along the Eyre Peninsula, the quaint German town of Hahndorf and the Barossa Valley – because when in that part of South Australia, a dinner at a winery is a must (even if you spend the rest of the year recovering from it, and I don’t mean the calories). Oh, and Adelaide itself.
Follow the Lifestyle category on Region for more of this content in 2026.
