Chasing the sun in an Equinox
The trek from one coast of the South Island to the other used to be epic. These days it’s an easy day trip to watch the sun rise on one side and set on the other, writes Damien O’Carroll.
Getting from one coast of the South Island to the other used to take a serious effort. A very serious effort, thanks to the fact that there was something in the way – a little something called the Southern Alps.
It was a lot more difficult before Julius von Haast, Henry Lewis, William Homer and Arthur Dobson plotted their respective ways over (or, in Homer’s case, eventually under) the rugged mountain range, and even the decades following the discovery of the Haast Pass, Lewis Pass and Arthur’s Pass, their respective transitions from tracks to proper roads saw them remain challenging.
In fact, if you wanted to go from Christchurch to the West Coast much before the last decade, it was sometimes a gamble if you would even get there, with Arthur’s Pass being prone to landslides and avalanches on a regular basis.
Arthur’s Pass was first surveyed by Arthur Dobson in 1864 when he and his brothers, George and Edward, were commissioned to find out whether there was a suitable pass from the Waimakariri watershed to the West Coast, after their exploration
of the West Coast the previous year.
On the advice of a local Ma¯ ori chief, they found a steep pass that descended to what would eventually become the small township of Otira, that had been used by local Ma¯ ori as a trading route.
Dobson submitted his findings, along with a sketch of the unnamed mountain pass, to the chief surveyor and that may well have been the end of it, if it wasn’t for one thing – shortly after, gold was discovered on the West Coast.
There’s nothing like a gold rush to trigger investment, so the provincial engineer – the Dobson brothers’ father, Edward – was instructed to study every pass to find a suitable place for road access.
He found that ‘‘Arthur’s pass’’ was the best option, the local government gave the go-ahead and the road was opened on March 20, 1866.
Arthur’s Pass would go on to eventually become part of State Highway 73, and had many improvements over the decades that followed, but it remained a challenging drive.
In fact, anyone who grew up in the area in the last 50 years would have childhood memories of long, arduous trips across the Alps, with much parental planning, packed lunches and, inevitably, car sickness thrown in (well, up) for good measure.
But that was then. Since the 1990s massive amounts of engineering has been poured into the western side of Arthur’s Pass – most notably the massively impressive Otira¯ Viaduct – eradicating the worst of the old road and making the drive a relatively simple day trip, although it is still prone to the odd slip or bit of flooding in places.
But the trip is generally so simple these days that it is now easily possible to watch the sun rise in Christchurch and set on the West Coast, which is exactly what we did recently.
I say ‘‘we’’, but it was actually Holden’s idea. Disrupted plans to do the drive the Equinox the equinox meant we were doing it on the shortest day instead, but the concept – watch the sun rise on one coast and set on the other – was still interesting enough to do it anyway.
Of course, these days just popping across Arthur’s Pass is far too easy, so to make it a decent trip, we actually headed out from Christchurch and across to Punakaiki via the Lewis Pass, coming back via Arthur’s Pass the next day.
Getting up early enough to watch the sun rise in Christchurch is, as you would expect, a fairly chilly affair, so after a suitable time spent admiring the natural beauty of a sunrise over a pristine beach, plenty of coffee and some bacon and eggs gave way to the pleasantly heated seats (and steering wheel) of a Holden Equinox LTZ-V.
While a mid-size SUV is easily the most practical, arguably the most comfortable definitely the most representative of a typical family vehicle to use for a blast over the Southern Alps, it could hardly be accused of being the most fun.
However, the Equinox has a few treats in store there, mainly because the 2.0-litre turbo fourcylinder petrol engine in the LTZV is surprisingly powerful for a vehicle in its class. With 188kW of power and 353Nm of torque on offer, the Equinox outguns both the 178kW Ford Escape 2.0-litre and 170kW 2.5-litre turbo of the Mazda CX-5 Takami (although the Takami out-muscles both with 420Nm of torque), with most others in the segment offering only around 130 to 140kW.
The powerful and flexible engine is hooked up to a slick 9-speed automatic transmission that is a nicely effortless operator, but it is the Equinox’s surprisingly capable chassis that is the engine’s true partner in crime. So to speak.
Responsive, with nicely controlled body roll, the Equinox is capable of being hustled along a winding road at an impressive rate of knots, although there is a small trade off in terms of a slightly firm ride that has a habit of turning slightly brittle at lower speeds on rougher roads.
Although there is quite a bit of hard plastic on show inside the Equinox – and a few areas that show its American (well, Mexican) build quality – the interior is generally a pleasant place to be, being nicely quiet – save the unwanted optional extra of a photographer sliding around the back seat yelling ‘‘Closer! Faster!’’ every time he sees another Equinox in front he wants to photograph – and sensibly laid out.
The exterior is, shall we say, an acquired taste and its strongly American-flavoured cab-forward look is not a taste that I personally have acquired yet, and would still seem to be a lot of people’s point of resistance towards the Equinox.
Which is a shame, because if you get past the looks, the driving experience is still one of the best in its segment, and while both the Lewis and, particularly, Arthur’s, passes are now effortlessly easy things to traverse, the Equinox made it even more so.