A weekend of exploring on the moors and hammock camping in the woods with the shiny new Vauxhall MOKKA X SUV, a car made for outdoorsy road trips. It’s your life, go drive it.
My need to escape to wild open places for peace and fresh air is especially strong at the moment. Busy streets and bad news days make me itch to throw hiking boots and a hammock in the boot of the car and drive far away, preferably into the sunset. So when Vauxhall lent me their new MOKKA X, a sturdy new SUV with 4X4 capability, and said they didn’t mind it getting a bit muddy, I took them at their word and ran (well, drove) for the hills.
The MOKKA X was made for a road trip. Take it out of the city and it morphs from slick SUV to rugged 4X4, happy splashing along moorland roads and revving up country tracks. It’s full of smart bits of kit to make your life easier, too – if you have an iPhone you can connect to Apple Play and stick your favourite songs on the radio whilst you navigate using Google Maps.
And the Vauxhall OnStar app is a little like having a handy robot mate in the car with you – it allows you to unlock the MOKKA remotely, downloads destinations directly to the vehicle’s navigation system and even sends out an automatic alert in the case of a crash.
Driving south to Cornwall never fails to make me happy. There’s so much space here to breathe and myriad different secret corners to explore. Luckily the MOKKA X is up to the challenge of seeking out new landscapes in any weather. We met inquisitive wild cattle, got deliberately lost and watched the evening light turn the moors pink and gold. I’ve not been driving that long and I find motorways and busy roundabouts exhausting, but navigating around country lanes and rural tracks is a totally different kind of driving, and both a challenge and a pleasure. When we reached the edge of the moors I loaded up my rucksack and set off into the woods to find somewhere to string up my hammock.
The world seems far away when you’re under a canopy of leaves turned russet red by the waning autumn, with nothing to do of an evening but make a cup of coffee and relax. Sometimes getting outdoors can seem like an effort, especially when the chill winter approaches, but in future I’m going to adopt Vauxhall’s own strapline for the MOKKA X – it’s your life, so go drive it.
