SHE SAYS . . .

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31178, 30 September 1966, Page 11

SHE SAYS . . .

... if you are intending to t take a motoring holiday this; Christmas it is time to start planning. With more and more roads being opened, improved and sealed and more service and accommodation offered the motorist, such trips are no longer the pioneering expeditions they used

to be, but they still call for plenty of planning. And if you are intending to stay at hotels or motels you may already have left your booking rather late.

There is a great deal of pleasure to be gained from planning a trip, even if it is only a week-end jaunt. Travelling off the main roads can be particularly rewarding, and a little exploring away from the usual routes can reveal some pleasant surprises, as

well as making it possible to avoid the heavy traffic.

i But careful route planning >| is important, and a good map : is the first essential. Many I maps are available. Several • issued by oil companies give > ample coverage of places of i interest. The Automobile Asi sociation touring maps and • guides give even better covl erage.

Once you have selected your maps, learn how to read them. This is usually a task for the wife or girl-friend, who has the job of navigating while the man drives. It is particul-

arly vital to be able to follow your course on the map and get the turns right: you will be most unpopular if you order a right turn, when, if you had held the map the right way up, you would have seen that a left turn was needed.

You can either mark your route on the map beforehand, or just follow interesting roads: provided, you keep track of your route on the map there is no danger of getting lost. Remember north is usually at the top of the map, south at the bottom, west on the left, and east on the right.

The best choice for the real back-road enthusiast are the maps produced by the Lands and Survey Department, and available from the department’s office. One can obtain maps to a scale of four miles to the inch, but better still are the one mile to the inch maps, on which nearly everything is marked, even power lines and groups of trees. One warning with these maps, however—check when they were published (this is printed on the map). Some are now rather out of date.

Avoid interfering with the driver’s vision or movements by opening the map out fully in a moving car, and do not under any circumstances try to attract the driver’s attention to something on the map when he is driving. If you are in doubt, hold your conference after the car has stopped. Plan carefully, learn to read your map, and make sure you read it correctly. Do not forget it is well worth while studying the map for roads down to rivers: some small back roads lead to excellent and often little-known swimming holes.