Crocodiles are the most famous indigenous reptiles in Australia's Northern Territory, but the asphalt beneath our Porsche 911 Turbo's tires feels more like a snake. Where the contact patches felt reasonably well connected at our regular cruising speed of 125-30 mph, the road increasingly writhes and wriggles beneath us as the variable-vane turbos pump generous slugs of boost into the flat-6's combustion chambers.
Throttle pinned, the full 480 bhp accelerates us now, the pride of Weissach ripping an increasingly ragged wound through unsuspecting air. Tires dab more tentatively at the pavement as the forces of aerodynamic lift and crosswinds have their way. Diagonal and fore/ aft pitching motions intensify, as a gentle pavement ripple at 90 mph becomes a bump-stop thumper at double that velocity. The steering is alive and sizzling, Dolby Surround Sound for the fingertips.
As the digits creep toward 300 km/h (186 mph to us North Americans), photog Jay McNally calmly asks, "Doug, can you move your hand out of the way so I can get a shot of the speedometer?" Oh well, so much for the hero driver fantasy. Concentration is required here, but truth be known, the 911 Turbo is so well sorted that a trained wallaby (with a Skip Barber two-day course, perhaps) could safely attain this speed. Or Jay. But I don't let him drive. Call me selfish.
Of course, you need the proper venue for such velocities, and the tropical northern Outback of Australia proves suitably vast. In its totality, the Australian continent has nearly the land area of America's contiguous 48 states. And the Northern Territory alone, a vast rectangular block that stretches from Darwin on the north coast to Ayers Rock and Alice Springs to the south, is more than twice the size of Texas -- with a population density just 1/200th that of the Lone Star state. And of that population, more than one- quarter are indigenous Australians, or Aborigines, many of whom continue to live off the land away from the cities.
Our route, from Darwin to Jabiru to Katherine to Daly Waters and back to Darwin, was ambitious, a distance of 880 miles covered in a day and a half. Yet it was quite possible to accomplish, thanks to the unrestricted speed zones outside of towns, denoted by signs with a black slash inside a circle.
So, left to your own devices, how fast do you want to go on these narrowish two-lanes? Or more precisely, what speed do you want to sustain over a long period? Factor in the car's capabilities, common sense, testosterone level, road width, ego diameter, bumpiness, sense of self-preservation and number of surface changes/ patches per mile. Then consider the many so-called road trains -- semis pulling as many as five linked trailers that can be more than 200 ft. long -- and vacationers pulling pop-top campers that can block your view in long sweepers. Last, ponder the critters that can -- and do -- jump out in front of your car.
The cute wallabies, unfortunately, seem to be the road kill of choice, and scavenger birds feeding off their carcasses don't exactly file a flight plan when approached by a speeding Porsche. Road crews intentionally burn back the roadside vegetation -- which looks like a cross between Southern California's chaparral scrub and taller, broad-leafed trees from a Hawaiian rain forest -- to increase visibility and help minimize the casualties.
We're lucky. We take a flak hit early on at about 100 mph, a small pigeon-size bird on the upper left-hand corner of the windshield. It bounces off without breaking the glass, leaving only a small clump of feathers and a smear of viscera. Our journalist cohorts from Hong Kong and Seoul weren't so fortunate, impacting a larger bird that skipped off the front trunklid and smashed the windshield, a neatly circular spider-web of cracks rimming the crater. Generous applications of duct tape allowed them to continue, albeit visibility-impaired.
You get used to going fast. After a while, our "sweet speed" of 130 mph or so seemed like 80 on the Interstate, and slowing to an actual 80, you feel as though you could run alongside the car. The pavement is uniformly coarse and road noise at "cruise" is a real issue, so we have to raise our voices considerably for conversation. There are plenty of straight sections intermingled with gentle sweepers, great opportunities to blast by the road trains, assorted dawdlers and yes, even the occasional cop. If you don't do anything erratic or unsafe, it's perfectly legal to blow past a Holden Monaro capped with a light bar, as we did, without that bar lighting up. I highly recommend this.
A potential downside to devouring chunks of countryside at such a clip is that you miss seeing things other than roadway. Our gracious hosts at Porsche saw to it that we soaked up some local color. The Daly Waters Pub, for instance, could be the definitive Outback roadhouse -- corrugated tin roof, little signs with Aussie-isms all over the place, rows of colorful bras and boxer shorts pinned to the rafters -- where we feasted on Beef 'n' Barra (short for barramundi, a fish prized by anglers for its fighting ability, that tastes not unlike halibut). The town of Daly Waters itself (pop. 30-ish) was originally a stop for cattle drives and has an aviation past, with an airstrip and early QANTAS hangar from the days when that airline was graduating from second-hand fabric-covered biplanes. (The airline's name, incidentally, is an acronym standing for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, Ltd.) There's a friendly, dusty and rugged feel to the place, much like the people themselves.
And there was Jabiru, deep in the heart of the Kakadu National Park, where we stayed at the Gagudju Crocodile Holiday Inn. The "croc" part is not merely lip service, as the entire hotel is built in the shape of a crocodile! The highlight here was a helicopter tour of the nearby Arnhem Escarpment, where colorful reddish layers of rock, crisscrossed with gorges and chasms, jut up 1000 ft. from the surrounding countryside. Simply spectacular. We were able to use the helicopters for aerial footage of the 911 Turbos too [gratuitous plug for our video, at www.roadandtrack.com].
All in all, it was quite a trip, seeing the Outback blur by from the seat of a 911 Turbo, connected to the earth yet traveling at light aircraft velocities. No doubt, tonight's commute home through Southern California's congestion will flow like cold molasses.
