Approach Angle 17.3
By Budd Stanley
While I may constantly rage on about our over reliance on modern technology, I now have to confess I’ve embraced a number of them to fulfill a dream. I’m going to spend the next couple issues on the other side of the planet exploring new places while simultaneously work to produce 4WDrive. Cellular uplinks, Wi-Fi connections, digital Wi-Fi photography and something called “The Cloud;” these are all technologies that I mock, yet they have allowed me combine work with adventure.
As I write this, it was only a week ago that I was in Quebec, enjoying a proper Canadian winter complete with the Great Lakes nearly frozen over and temperatures below -30. I write this now from the balcony of a good friends house in Perth, Australia, where the sun has burnt me to a crisp and my body is protesting a 70-degree Celsius change in temperature in a little under a week.
The locals love to wheel every bit as much as we do, and often combine travel with four-wheeling. I’ve already been into the Outback with a Toyota Landcruiser Troopy, and will soon be exploring New Zealand’s Southern Alps at the wheel of a Nissan Navara, all thanks to rental companies that put proper 4WD’s in their fleets for people like us to get the most out of our vacations. I’ll speak a little more about this and the environments that I will be exploring later on in this, and future issues.
As much as I am enjoying my time in the southern hemisphere, being away from home has demonstrated just how good we have it in Canada. The first is the sheer vastness of our country and amount of open terrain that we are free to roam through. Sure, there are some current and future land use issues, and we as a sporting community need to not only educate our own, but remind others the vast majority of us are not out to destroy everything we touch. Regardless, we still have it pretty good.
In Canada, at least in the south, we really haven’t felt the wrath of global warming. Down here in Australia, the massive hole that has been burnt into the ozone layer is making itself known quite clearly to the locals. Every car has UV damage to the paint, it only takes about five years before clearcoats start to bubble up and flake away. Vehicles more the 10 years old look like they have weathered decades of Canadian summers. And that kind of damage is not just left to vehicles, 50% Australians will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives and it kills 43,000 people each year.
So, while I’m having the time of my life down here, at the same time, I’m just as happy that I come from a country like Canada. A place where we are free to roam, and still a little naive of the realities and hassles that many other countries must endure.