We Drove the Mercedes-Benz G-Class Desert Expedition, and So Can You
The multiday foray in Morocco combines piloting G-Class variants through a gauntlet of dunes with glamping and a private jet.
The radio crackled as a wall of orange sand filled the view through the windshield. “Accelerate! Accelerate! We need lots of speed here.” I punched the gas pedal, the 430kW twin-turbo V-8 bellowed, and the Mercedes-AMG G 63 4×42 stormed up the wall like an F-35 jet fighter punching a hole in the sky. I steered gently left, following the wheel tracks of the G-Class ahead as we rim fired around the top of the dune before popping out onto a flat terrace of sand. All around, empty orange dunes rippled under an azure sky, a still-life sea of sand baking under the burning sun. I steadied the big Mercedes and immediately got ready to plunge it down the other side of the dune.
The limited-edition G 63 4×42—priced just over $383,000 when launched in 2022. With its wide-track portal axle driveline, 22-inch wheels with giant tires that give it 13.8 inches of ground clearance, and the towering stance of a monster truck, this high-riding Mercedes is mostly seen as a loud and showy toy. But underneath the swagger is a meticulously engineered, industrial-strength off-roader that, when the road runs out, will take you almost any land-covered place on the planet. And, more importantly, bring you back again.
Like Porsche and BMW, Mercedes has for some years now given customers the opportunity to buy time behind the wheel of one of the marque’s cars during mid-winter and spend a few days driving them near the Arctic Circle. The Mercedes-AMG Experience on Ice offers seat time in high-performance cars such as the AMG GT, and provides experts who will teach you the art and science of drifting on tracks carved across frozen lakes. For those who want a little more time to enjoy the scenic winter landscapes around Areplog, Sweden, they can take part in one of the Ice x G-Class Expeditions. Now Mercedes is bringing the same idea to the rocks and sand of Morocco in North Africa. As with the ice-driving program, the desert version is inspired by the extreme testing done by the automaker’s vehicle-development engineers.
For about $26,600 (at current exchange rates), the G-Class Desert Expedition experience offers you the opportunity to spend three days driving different versions of the iconic Mercedes off-roader—not just the G 63 4×42, but also the G 63, the G 500, the all-electric G 580, and the diesel-engine G 450d. The G 450d is the pick of the G-Class models if you’re a serious overlander, thanks to its smooth, torquey, and economical six-cylinder 3.0-litre turbocharged diesel engine.
The route starts in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh and heads through the rugged Atlas Mountains on roads and trails few tourists ever see, out to the towering orange dunes of the Merzouga Desert, and then on to the provincial town of Errachidia, where you board a private jet and, in just 40 minutes, are whisked back to the luxury of Marrakesh’s legendary La Mamounia hotel. (Or you can do it the other way around: Jet out to Errachidia and drive back to Marrakesh.) Mercedes supplies the G-Class vehicles, a support crew that includes expert off-roaders and a doctor, and arranges all the accommodations and meals. You just arrive and drive.
Situated on the flatlands just west of the High Atlas Mountains, Marrakesh, from which the name of the country of Morocco is derived, was founded 1,000 years ago by the Berbers, who by the 13th century ran an empire that arced across the northwestern corner of Africa—from today’s Libya to the western Sahara—and covered much of southern Spain, including the cities of Seville, Cordoba, Granada, and Valencia. The city’s exotic mix of Arab, Berber, African, and European cultures—Morocco was a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956, and French is still widely spoken—gives it a unique feel that’s typified by the ambience of the quietly opulent La Mamounia hotel.
Opened in 1929, La Mamounia, built on the grounds and gardens of a sultan’s palace, combines traditional Moroccan architecture with 20th century Art Deco flair. Winston Churchill, who stayed there in the 1930s, called it one of the best hotels in the world. Inspired by the hotel’s name, Paul McCartney wrote “Mamunia” while staying there, the song appearing on the 1973 Wings album Band on the Run. Other notable guests over the years have included Ronald Reagan, Charlie Chaplin, and Andy Warhol.
The Atlas Mountains essentially separate the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean and run 1,600 miles through Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. They are rocky and remote, and the highest peak, Toubkal, which on a clear day you can see from Marrakesh, soars to 13,671 feet and is covered in snow during the winter. The G-Class Expedition takes you through these peaks, up over remote passes—our highest was almost 9,200 feet—and through remote villages clinging to the sides of mountains above rivers that can rage when the meltwaters come each spring. Even the paved roads here can be challenging: Heavy rains cause flash floods that not only wash away bridges and causeways, but also cascade tons of loose rock off the mountainsides and across the road. Yet the lead-follow system, our guides in constant radio contact with the vehicles in their group, takes the worry out of what might be around the next corner.
The Anti-Atlas Mountains, which run to the southeast of the High Atlas, have quite a different visual character and are less vertiginous. Our highest pass in them was 7,545 feet on a smooth, paved road. Among the highlights of this stretch is lunch inside Gara Medouar, a crater-like rock formation just past the eastern extremity of the Anti-Atlas range. The site was used as a location in the James Bond movie Spectre. The Mercedes guides also get you to bring your G-Class to the top of the eastern rim of the formation to view the flatlands stretching off towards the Sahara and Merzouga Camp, where participants spend a night before tackling the giant dunes.
Merzouga Camp is one of numerous glamping facilities that nestle along the southern edge of the Merzouga Dunes. It’s not the La Mamounia, but with each “tent” having its own bathroom and air conditioning, it’s a lot more comfortable than roughing it in the sand with a sleeping bag. One of the highlights of the stay here is a ride to the top of one of the tallest dunes in the desert so you can watch the sun set over the sea of sand as you have a cold beer or chilled glass of wine.
The Mercedes-Benz G-Class Desert Expedition experience is a unique adventure, not the least because of Morocco’s exotic culture and fascinating history. And there’s one more thing: You get to do stuff most owners would never do in their own G-Class vehicles. It’s a proper go-anywhere 4×4 that’s as tough as a Toyota Land Cruiser and as capable as a Land Rover Defender.
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Omega Just Unveiled 9 Watches in Its New Constellation Observatory Collection
The line-up shows up a bevy of metals and colours, too, as well as two new calibres.
Omega’s latest watch is in a universe of its own.
The Swiss watchmaker just unveiled its new Constellation Observatory Collection today, the next step in its Constellation lineage and the first two-hand hour and minute timepieces to ever earn Master Chronometer certification. And if you were paying attention to any of the dazzling watches spotted at the Oscars this year, you would’ve caught a glimpse of the new line already: Sinners star Delroy Lindo rocked one of the models on the Academy Awards red carpet, giving us a pre-release preview of the collection.
Developed at Omega’s new Laboratoire de Précision (its chronometer testing lab open to all brands), the collection houses a set of nine 39.4 mm watches. The watches underwent 25 days of scrutiny there, analysed via a new acoustic testing method that recorded every sound emitted from the timepiece to track irregularities, temperature sensitivities, and more in the name of all things precision. (Details such as water resistance and power reserve are also thoroughly examined.) This meticulous process is all in the name of snagging that Master Chronometer label, meaning that the timepiece is highly accurate and surpasses the threshold for ultra-high performance. The Constellation Observatory Collection has now changed the game, though, thanks to its lack of a seconds hand.
“Until now, precision certification has required a seconds hand,” Raynald Aeschlimann, president and CEO of OMEGA, said in a press statement. “The development of a new acoustic testing methodology has made that requirement obsolete. It is this breakthrough that has enabled us to present the Constellation Observatory, the first two-hand watch to achieve Master Chronometer certification.”
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Each model is a callback to myriad design features on past Omega models. That two-hand dial, for one, comes from the 1948 Centenary (the brand’s first chronometer-certified automatic wristwatch), while the pie-pan dial (seen in various blue, green, and golden hues throughout the line) and that Constellation medallion caseback both appear on watches from 1952. The star adorning the space above 6 o’clock also harks back to 1950s timepieces from Omega. And to finish off the look, you can opt for alligator straps in a variety of colours, or perhaps a gold iteration to match the precious-metal models; the brick-like pattern on the 18-karat Moonshine bracelet was also inspired by Omega watches from the ’50s.
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What distinguishes Loro Piana, particularly in a market that has grown noisier by the season, is its refusal to perform luxury in an obvious register. There are no oversized insignias telegraphing allegiance. Instead, the status is encoded in fibre count, in hand-feel, in how a coat hangs from the shoulder. It assumes the wearer knows and, crucially, does not need to announce it.
Sydney’s luxury landscape has matured in recent years; global houses no longer test the waters but commit to them. Yet Loro Piana’s arrival feels different. It is not trend-driven expansion but material logic. For a country whose sheep stations have long contributed to the house’s fabric story, this boutique reads almost as a thank-you note written in cashmere.
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Mauve on Up
Brisbane boutique stay Miss Midgley’s offers a viscerally human experience—especially if you dig pink.
On a sun-bleached corner of Brisbane’s New Farm, where the scent of frangipani mingles with the clink of coffee cups, stands a building that has lived more lives than most people. Once a premier’s residence, an orphanage, a hospital and a private school, the 160-year-old stone structure now finds itself reborn as Miss Midgley’s—a boutique stay that teaches a masterclass in how to make heritage feel modern.
Designed and run by architect-mother-daughter duo Lisa and Isabella White, Miss Midgley’s captures the cultural confidence of a city in bloom. Nowhere is that new confidence more visible than along James Street—the leafy, slow-burn heart of the city’s fashion and dining scene—where Miss Midgley’s sits quietly at the edge, its shell-pink façade glowing in the subtropical light.
Built of Brisbane’s rare volcanic tuff, the building’s soft mauves and pinks are more than aesthetic; they are its identity. Locals still remember its 1950s incarnation as the Pink Flats, and the Whites have honoured that legacy with a contemporary blush-toned exterior, chosen to harmonise with the stone’s peachy undertones. Inside, those hues continue in dusty terracottas, russets and the faint shimmer of brass tapware. “Design can’t afford to be for the sake of fashion,” Isabella White has said. “It has to respond to what’s in front of you.”
That sentiment is tangible in every corner. Five apartments, each with their own idiosyncratic floor plan, occupy the building. Ceilings bloom with heritage plasterwork, 19th-century wallpaper fragments have been preserved in the kitchens, and tiny hand-painted notes left by the architects point out original quirks: a misaligned beam here, a hidden archway there. It’s a kind of adult treasure hunt for design lovers, where discovery feels personal and unforced.
Even the picket fence, a heritage requirement, has been reimagined in corten steel—a sly nod to regulation turned into sculpture. It’s this blend of reverence and rebellion that gives Miss Midgley’s its edge: heritage without starch, nostalgia without sentimentality.
True to Brisbane’s easy elegance, luxury here is measured not in marble or minibar but in proportion, privacy, and personality. Each apartment—from the Drawing Room and the Assembly Hall to the Principal’s Office—is a self-contained sanctuary with its own kitchen, large bathroom and outdoor space. The ground-floor units open onto leafy courtyards and welcome small dogs; upstairs, the larger suites spill onto verandahs shaded by jacarandas.
At the heart of the property lies a solar-heated pool hemmed with tropical greenery and fringed umbrellas—more mid-century Palm Springs than colonial Brisbane. Around it, guests share a petite laundry, a communal library and that rarest of urban luxuries: a car park per apartment. The atmosphere is quietly collegiate—a handful of travellers who might nod to each other on the stairs but otherwise inhabit their own creative bubbles.
The hotel’s namesake, Annie Midgley, lends the project both its name and its spirit. An ambidextrous artist and teacher, she famously instructed two students at once, writing with both hands simultaneously—a fitting metaphor for the dual vision the Whites bring to the building: one hand rooted in history, the other sketching toward the future. “Not famous, yet known,” goes the property’s understated tagline—and indeed, Miss Midgley’s has quietly become that most desirable of addresses: the one whispered about by people who know.
Sustainability isn’t an accessory here; it’s structural. The adaptive reuse of the heritage building is its boldest environmental act. Solar panels power the property; an electric heat pump warms the pool; recycled decking and tiles frame the courtyard. The metre-thick tuff walls regulate temperature naturally, and the amenities follow suit—refillable bath products, biodegradable pods, Seljak blankets spun from textile off-cuts, and compendiums wrapped in Australian-made kangaroo leather. It’s slow luxury in the truest sense.
In a world of carbon-copy hotels, Miss Midgley’s feels deeply human—a place where history isn’t curated behind glass but lives in the warmth of stone and the flicker of afternoon light. The lesson it offers is simple and resonant: that the most elegant modernity often comes not from reinvention, but from listening to what’s already there.
