Happenings

Performance Drive Recce Trip | Part Two

BY Joel Tam

It's been a busy start to the year, which explains the late update of the second part of our performance drive recce. Well, you know what they say, better late than never!

Once again, if you've missed our earlier story last year, we took a trip up north to Cameron Highlands to prepare for an all-out performance drive trip we're organising at the end of March. Only 10 cars will join us for this trip at a highly discounted rate. Registration begins soon - watch for it.

Traveling more than 2,000 km, there will be long straights, twisty B-roads and long sweeping bends to really test your car out. Since our last trip, we've visited the location yet again to familairise ourselves even more before we lead the pack up!

Below are more photos and highlights of our initial recce up the mountain.

Volkswagen-sponsored Tiguan Sport and Jetta Sport were more than capable of negotiating the twisty B-roads leading up to the peak. Although I can imagine a hot-hatch really munching up the corners with a vengeance. This being our second day, we woke early to head up to the Boh Tea plantation, where even fresher air await us.

The road up the tea plantation was no easy feat. It looks wide here in pictures, but it narrows further up and remains a two-way lane. It gets even hairier if a large vehicle approaches on the opposite side, worse still if you're on the outside lane - veer off the road and it's literally downhill from there. So fun!

The view was worth the trip up though. Needless to say the weather too, was simply perfect.

The breathtaking Boh Tea plantation. Acres and acres of it.

But we came here to drive! So after some tea sipping, we immediately zoomed to the main reason we came here - the Gua Musang highway. A 400 km highway that stretches across mountain ridges and snaking hillsides. This highway takes us to the town of Gua Musang (Fox's Cave).

90 minutes of pure exhilaration! There's no better way to put it.

With about one quarter tank left, we drove further into town for a refuel and some lunch, before heading back the same road for another 90 minutes of orgasmic driving.

Petrol sponsors Caltex was ever ready to 'fuel' our trip - perfectly in line with their slogan "Enjoy The Journey"!

All fueled up and ready to go! Yummy, look at that road snaking from the top of the hill! All lanes on this highway are wide enough to accommodate two cars on each direction - but we won't be doing any overtaking maneuvers during the actual trip though!

It was another 45 mins to the hotel from the Gua Musang/Cameron Highland turn-off. The rest of the day was spent resting and then off to the bustling weekend night market!

Sunday morning and the two cars are up and ready to go. We head to a local strawberry farm to do what everyone who goes to Cameron Highlands does. Pick strawberries!

After that, it was bye bye Cameron Highlands and back to Singapore. With one lunch break and a refuel stop, we reached the Singapore border in about 8 hours, just in time for dinner. A tiring but extremely fulfilling drive trip that was totally out-of-this-world! It is just not possible to experience it on our tiny island - and we can't wait to share it with the rest of you!