A moment of craziness

The other day I wanted to take a quick trip to Cameron. Got in the car and punched in Bharat and the GPS came up with a "Ulu Geroh to Bharat Tea Plantation" point. Without thinking much I just followed it blindly.

Reaching the normal Simpang Pulai - Cameron Highlands exit the GPS said to continue further instead of turning in. Since I was curious I decided to follow it (without checking my destination point again). Took me into the heart of Gopeng and had me veered on into Kg Sungei Itek.

Then the roads got narrower and narrower and bumpier.... perhaps a sprinkle of craziness and stupidity was in the air. Crossed a wooden/metal bridge (see picture above) and the trail leads deeper into the hearts of the a palm oil estate passing by Adeline's Place and Riverbug.

I think I did another 15 minutes before finally giving up in the palm oil estate roads. The trails are starting to look really bad and it would be disastrous to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no backup to tow me if i got stuck.

So it was about 30 minutes of craziness before I finally backtracked the GPS trail and headed back into civilization. Had any of my friends and family been in the car with me, I probably would have not made it past the bridge. haha...

Note:

Navigation by Garmin Nuvi 200 with MalsingMap 3.2 Gold

Fuel Consumption Improvements

Its been a couple of weeks since the tyre change. So far I've done about 3 refuels and mileage has gone up to between 8-9km/litres. And this is for town driving only. I wonder what highway would feel like will it be the 11.xkm/litres or better?

I can only guess that this improvement is due to the fact all tyres have the same thread run ins. Compared to previously the front left was less than the right.

Oil Change and Tyres

In the last few weeks, went for an oil change. Decided to go back to the standard mineral oil. The semi-synthetic Magnatec costs about RM90 changing to the standard mineral saved more or less RM20 as I opted to use the drum type. They pumped 3.9 liters of the Castrol GTX which cost RM66. No doubt running mineral the engine feels a little bit heavy especially when you floor it but for day to day traffic jam use it doesn't really show. I'm thinking of Idemitsu mineral for the next round. Maybe I could get the bottled one out at the spare parts shops for cheaper. ^_^

Finally got rid of those Dunlop RV70. Got myself a nice set of Yokohama Geolander G044 for RM290 a piece. I should have done this earlier. The new rubber is so smooth and quiet on the road. Also there is this 'imaginary' steering pull during braking that seems to have disappear after the change. I suspected pull as the front tyres have uneven wear on both sides. Now that all the tyres are nice and even, I wonder if fuel consumption will improve ?