Day One: Into the dunes

The morning starts just outside Pinnaroo with a serious chill in the air and a thick blanket of fog over the paddocks. Before the convoy leaves the highway behind, preparation comes first. The Tank 300 Hi4-T is hugely capable straight off the showroom floor, but remote-area driving rewards the prepared: recovery gear, traction boards, snatch straps and aired-down tyres. The only change from showroom spec is a set of all-terrain tyres for the conditions ahead.

"Come prepared," says GWM Product Planning Manager, Tim Leong. "Recovery gear, traction boards, snatch straps. You never know what conditions you'll find."

Then the bitumen runs out. Wide gravel roads narrow into winding, sandy tracks lined with native scrub as far as you can see, and it's immediately obvious why this place has become a pilgrimage for four wheel drivers. It's also where the Hi4-T argument gets real. Soft sand punishes engines that need revs to make torque; the Tank 300 Hi4-T's electric motor answers instantly, feeding 300kW and 750Nm through a proper mechanical four wheel drive with low range and front and rear locking differentials.

Lunch, Powered By The Car

Lunch isn't a cold sandwich beside the track. The Tank's 37.1kWh battery holds nearly twice what a typical four-person household uses in a day, so it becomes the campsite: a 2.2kW outlet in the boot running the fridge, and up to 6kW through Vehicle to Load running the electric bbq and coffee machine. Burgers sizzling, a screen streaming under the open sky, and not a generator in earshot.

Big Dune

Photos never capture the scale. Standing at the bottom of Big Dune looking skyward, you understand why this climb is a rite of passage. There's more than one way up, every line is deep, loose sand, and the team walks it first, reading the surface and working out where momentum matters most. Then the Tank 300 Hi4-T charges. Instant response from the electric motor, traction from the mechanical hardware, and Big Desert opens up beneath us: an uninterrupted panorama of dunes and bushland that goes on forever.

Panda Hill

The day ends on a tighter, trickier climb. Panda Hill's approach is narrow and the track changes with every visit, which suits the Tank 300's compact footprint and instant throttle response. Waiting at the summit is the payoff: the sun dropping, the dunes glowing gold, and Big Desert stretching out in every direction. The kind of view that makes everyone go quiet. Explore the beauty of our country in person, Be More Tank.

The same Tank 300 Hi4-T that mastered the Big Desert is waiting at your local GWM dealer.