Test Drive: Taking the Hyundai Venue to Lightning Ridge, Australia

Hyundai Venue in front of a kangaroo & wombat warning sign.Lightning Ridge location in Australia (blue circle)

Today it is time to relate to you my test drive of the Hyundai Venue. I took it to Lightning Ridge, a small town close to the border between New South Wales and Queensland (see location above), located 800 km northwest of Sydney. Lightning Ridge is a mining town and the world capital of black opal. Why is it called Lightning Ridge? It is believed to be because in the 1870s, some passers-by found the bodies of a farmer, his dog, and 200 sheep, which had been struck by lightning. Although focused on opal mining, the town is listed as one of the poorest places in the state. Its population is highly variable, with miners coming and going. It varies between 1,800 and 7,000.

Let’s now talk about the Hyundai Venue. Firstly the outside appearance makes it a really small car, smaller than I expected. The design is modern and timeless. Stepping inside though, the cabin is relatively spacious, belying its small car dimensions. A 1L bottle cannot fit inside the door storage though, and you can’t pull the driver’s seat all the way backwards. The instrument cluster is all digital, in contrast with more expensive vehicles such as the Mitsubishi Outlander we tested recently. The mandatory rear view camera is present, albeit on a rather small central digital screen. All has not been given up to digital, with still quite a few manual buttons below the screen for the aircon controls.

Starting the car off, the power is weak as expected for such a small car, but it makes it difficult to overtake long road trains on the highway. The line assist function is quite discreet and doesn’t beep all the time unlike, once again, the Mitsubishi Outlander. It is triggered by an actual line crossing and not constantly. Now onto the cruise control. It is basically unusable as it revs up to uncomfortable levels in order to keep the speed constant. So you are basically faced with high revs as soon as a very small hill drops the speed below the cruise level. And even in famously flat semi desert territory there are still small elevation differences on the road. Lastly, the seat support is inadequate and I coped a back ache every day starting only a few hundred km in.

New generation Ford Ranger with imposing roo barEven Toyota RAV4s get roo bars here

Now onto the cars encountered in Outback New South Wales, the state where Lightning Ridge is located. It has been a while since I traveled through the region so the car park has changed significantly. National leader for the past two years as it upset the Toyota Hilux, the Ford Ranger new generation is already very well represented in the area, notably with impressive “roo bars” at the front to protect against kangaroos. Interestingly, the Ranger isn’t #1 in New South Wales, this honour going to the Toyota RAV4. While there definitely were RAV4s on Outback roads, it is nowhere near the most frequent vehicle, as it owes its pole position to the big cities of the state such as Sydney.

All generations of Toyota Land Cruiser travel the Australian Outback roads Toyota Land Cruiser 70 2006 Holden Commodore and new gen Toyota PradoNew gen Toyota Prado

New generation Toyota Prado and Land Cruiser 70 can already be spotted across the region, just as the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 is already very frequent. There is also a constant flow of previous gens Land Cruiser 70 and Land Cruiser. Also lots of 2006 Holden Commodores, this is where they go to die.

Ford F-150 hiding behind its roo barRam 2500

Another striking aspect of the car park in Outback New South Wales is the relatively frequent prevalence of large American pickup trucks that have really found a market here. Ford F-150 and up, Rams and Chevrolet Silverados can be spotted.

GWM UteHaval H6

Finally, our last observation is the inroads made by Chinese vehicle. The GWM Ute (aka Poer) appears quite often as well as various models by Haval.

That’s all for our trip to Lightning Ridge! Stay tuned for our next travels.