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South Australia Road Trip: Why Car-Sharing Could Be Your Next Travel Obsession
Written by Paul Chai
Discover hidden gems in the picturesque Adelaide Hills with a stylish road trip powered by car-sharing app Turo. From biodynamic farms to winery lunches, here’s why an electric car might become your new travel obsession.
As a kid, Michael Knight’s futuristic car, KITT, in Knight Rider was my dream ride: a talking car with pulsating red lights, hidden weaponry and a voice like a highly paid therapist. Now, as an adult, faced with a real-life, tech-packed vehicle, a pearlescent Tesla Model 3, I struggle to get it out of the airport carpark.
The Tesla Model 3 is as much computer as car. Most of the operations run from a 13-inch touchpad, you open it via an app, start it without a key and it even has a beta-testing self-driving mode (that is not yet legal in Australia). A computer degree might help to adjust the wing mirrors.
That is why my host (and car owner), Natallia, is a godsend. She sits next to me and patiently explains the car’s technical wizardry like I’m a toddler with my first iPad. I am in Adelaide trying out a new car-sharing app called Turo that aims to disrupt car hire.
Choosing your road trip wheels
Booking a car through Turo is like borrowing your mate’s mint ride. Unlike conventional car hire, you get exactly the car you booked, you often get a friendly handover from the owner and you get wider range of choice.
“Our superpower is really unique selection,” says Turo Australia VP and managing director Tim Rossanis. “The more different types of vehicles that we have, the more unique experiences we can facilitate for guests, people come to Turo because they want to enhance their journey.”
Other advantages include having the cars spread over a wider geographical area than rental car company hubs and Turo’s stated aim of utilising idle cars more efficiently.
“We have millions of cars in this country, but billions across the world, that are in circulation so why not use those instead of buying new cars,” Tim says. “Most cars sit idle 90 or 95 per cent of the time. When I think about my cars if they are not picking up the kids and dropping them off, they are just sitting in the driveway.”
KITT and I finally make our way out of the parking garage and onto the broad boulevards of the Adelaide CBD. The “regenerative braking” takes some getting used to; when you remove your foot from the accelerator the car brakes and feeds any surplus power back to the battery. Great for battery life, offputting to a newbie Tesla driver, but I am happy I was forewarned by Natallia or I would think KITT really was sentient. We pull up to our Adelaide digs, the perfectly positioned Hotel Indigo in the midst of the Adelaide markets, and turn in for the night.
Road to wellness
Come morning I jump into KITT and do some programming based on a few more tips from my host. I switch acceleration to “sport” and stopping to “rolling” mode, which mimics a regular car, battery life be damned.
We are getting up to some chicanery in the Adelaide Hills and when I plant my foot on the freeway I nearly end up in KITT’s back seat. I love a freeway drive and am a big fan of cruise control but the Tesla takes it a step further and adjusts your top speed by reading the road signs.
Coming off the wide roads into the country switchbacks, I ditch the cruise control and the car sticks to the road like molten tar as the bucolic countryside flies by. I have also discovered the stereo, so roll into the carpark of Jurlique Farm feeling a bit more like David Hasselhoff’s fictional TV road warrior, though he wouldn’t have to check his app six times to make sure the car was locked.
We are visiting one of the Adelaide Hills’ most famous non-wine exports. Thirty-five years ago in the Adelaide Hills, Jurgen and Ulrike Klein were inspired to start a biodynamic farm and plant herbs and flowers that aid natural skincare. Three decades later Jurlique is a multi-million concern that exports to 27 countries.
We tour the farm, a mix of neat rows of roses and a swirling herb garden frequented by local blue-banded bees and surrounded by a lazy collection of kangaroos. Our walk starts with a whiff of the Jurlique rose – a hybrid created especially for the company – and ends up with me smelling like the David Jones perfume counter thanks to sampling some Jurlique wares.
From the farm we drive through the quaint Lutheran-founded village of Hahndorf to The Lane vineyard and by the time we arrive at the eucalypt-lined dirt road KITT and I have come to a pretty decent understanding. The Lane is a classic Hills’ winery with a timber deck looking across neat rows of vines whose symmetry is at odds with the naturally sloping terrain.
Over a lunch of roast chicken and a shared bottle of The Lane rose, Tim Rossanis tells us that a quarter of the time on a domestic road trip is usually spent behind the wheel. On the way back to Adelaide I pull over and hop out of the car so KITT can show me the Tesla’s quirkier features.
I put on a “light show”, and the car flashes various colours, opens windows and wiggles wing mirrors to a variety of tunes as I stand and watch. I get some strange looks, but I also try out some “caraoke” belting out Bohemian Rhapsody as KITT plays the backing track and flashes the words up on screen.
Charging KITT back up takes barely half an hour as we are still half charged, so I play some in-car video games, then I meet Natallia back at the hotel to hand over the metaphorical keys. If we really do spend 25 per cent of our staycations in the car, you should 100 per cent check out Turo.
Discover Adelaide
This article was produced in partnership with Turo.
This article was originally featured in the fifth issue of Dream by Luxury Escapes magazine. Get your copy here.
