X20 owner John goes on epic Australian adventure

One of our customers has just returned from an epic adventure in Australia where his X20 took various climates ‘all in its stride’.

John from New South Wales got his built-to-order X20 Woody with a quilted maple veneer and vintage amber burst and crystal ice, textured finish back and sides in July when he was kind enough to give us his first thoughts.

This week John contacted us having just returned from a seven-week trip in our four-wheel drive and off-road camper in which he and his partner Trudy did a bit over ten thousand kilometres through varied and often rough and challenging terrain.

John kindly told us how he got on with his X20 on the road in the following account of their trip demonstrating that their ability to deal with any type of climate is just one of the many benefits of having an Emerald with you on the road.

‘With the guitar strapped down in the camper we travelled through the outback in areas where there was nothing but sand dunes and salt lakes (dry) for hundreds of kilometres.

Each evening I would unstrap the X20 and apologize to it for the rough day it had and then play a while. It hardly ever needed much tuning even though some days we travelled hundreds of kilometres of severely corrugated and rough roads or on four-wheel drive tracks, creek crossings etc.

Leaving the outback, we spent some time going along the rugged coastline of South Oz before heading up into the Australian High Country where a very late snow season was ending in the early part of the spring thaw.

We wanted to climb Mt Kosciuszko, our highest peak at a bit over 7300 ft even though there was more snow than usual for this time of year. So with the X20 on my back Tru and I set off on the six klm hike through the snow to the summit where we were greeted with 60kph winds and a temperature of minus 5.5c.

With the wind howling I couldn’t hear a thing as I played Rocky Mountain High, but Tru was a great audience as she battled with the guitar case to keep it from blowing away! We quickly headed down off the mountain and when we finally got back to camp the X20 scarcely needed a tuning peg turned!

Throughout the trip we encountered conditions that were very hot and dry, some torrential downpours and storms and some quite cold places and the Emerald took it all in its stride. I’m sure a wooden instrument wouldn’t have taken the trip as well as the mighty X20 did!

So once again guys, thank you so much for building me a guitar that not only sounds amazingly good, but also allows me to take it along on our adventures.’

Thank you so much to John for telling us about his epic adventure with the X20. If you would like to find out more about the X20 Artisan, click here for further information.