Roger Moroney: Hold tight to sofa arm - we're off!

If the ride turns wild on Outback Truckers, she'll do me, cobber.

I don't mind being taken for a ride because it means I can have a quiet ale, as well as know I'm not paying for the petrol.

It also means that when things go terribly wrong. I can get up and make a cup of tea, or wander out to see what the weather is doing.

Television is an interesting playground for production companies with imagination and, after a while, you start getting the feeling that when one house of ideas comes up with one all the others go "ooh, let's make one as well".

That has certainly been the case in the world of cuisine which, I suppose, goes far back to the times of Hudson and Halls and even earlier with the flamboyant and excitable Graham Kerr, who had a penchant for putting sugar and butter (and lots of it) in everything.

He learned his culinary trade in the services and made a huge splash when he took cooking into telly-land.

Today the art of cooking, baking and serving has exploded, as we are all so well aware. There are Kiwi, Aussie, Brit and American masterchefs, and cooks with high profiles are now referred to as "celebrity" chefs.

So, anyway, pretty well everything else has followed.

In the wake of Storage Wars we got Hoarders and now the newcomer, Safe Crackers.

Then there are the house-renovation shows and the gardening and landscape ones. And the dangerous fishing expeditions in dicey waters where the crews all yell at each other before earning enough in six weeks to buy a Porsche.

They're all "reality"-type things, a strong staple of television today. Without them, television would not be able to run day and night, although some of the scheduling is slightly dodgy.

I see the National Geographic channel is running Ultimate Airport Dubai at 6.30 on Saturday night, followed by a show called Terror in the Skies: Pilot Error. After that is Air Crash Investigation.

Not sure if the Dubai runway management chaps would be too impressed with that.

So, it is clearly time to be taken for a ride and these are rides I have been enjoying because they are, to say the least, challenging and occasionally genuinely unsettling.

Such as the episode of Dangerous Roads last week which had two Brits travelling aboard a dodgy bus along an even more dodgy road (track) in Tibet on their way to the border with China.

At one stage the wheels of the bus were less than a metre from the edge and were beginning to sink into the damp surface.

Below was a river ... a good 100m or so below.

These lads were genuinely rattled and I was genuinely delighted to be where I was.

I used to think the old Napier-Taupo road was a challenge but this road was ludicrous. Yet, as they pointed out, the driver would arrive at his destination, then turn around and do it all again ... and again and again.

I also enjoy the Ice Road Truckers of Alaska and Canada who use frozen rivers and lakes as their highways. This is a timely thing to take in at this time of the year because it focuses on somewhere even colder than us.

Now there is a newcomer to the wild roads and trails and it, too, is a colourful watch.

From across the ditch comes Outback Truckers and it has emerged on TV1 on Saturdays.

I remember when we were over in Oz a while back and travelling across an open, rural expanse, we came upon what they call a road train: a massive truck towing two equally massive trailers.

The sort of thing which prompts you to pull up, get out and take a photo.

These outback rigs are monsters and they continually plough across the great red centre.

The drivers, naturally, are of a certain "style" and I like them and admire them, because anyone who can reverse one of those brutes when required is a genius.

It's an interesting ride and I wonder if New Zealand will climb aboard for the big truck/road ride at some stage?

How about Logger Lads?

I'll accept a 10 per cent commission for the idea if adopted. Ride on!

-Outback Truckers, TV1 at 7.30pm Saturday:

The drivers of these great road trains clearly enjoy a challenge. Like the chap who set forth on a 3000km delivery run across terrain we'd prefer to fly over, at best. They are veterans of the big rigs and so what if the road turns to rocks with a river running across it? No worries, digger ... just give it plenty of herbs and hang on. Some remarkable landscapes to enjoy also, from the comfort of your passenger seat a few thousand klicks away.