How the mighty Fall!

So, following the day of fun we had last week, we decided to meet up with the same chap and do a few more lanes. This time though we were going to find them ourselves and make sure that they were open and available for us to drive down. Started at Ashridge, covered Berkhamstead (not much there) and then decided to move up toward Biggleswade.

We were actually going to Ashwell, the lanes at Hitchin were closed and we found a couple at Ashwell that merited checking out. By now we had been going a lot of the day and had found a few but not really enough to keep us all going for the day on Saturday. Pulled off the A1 and promptly missed the turning to Ashwell so I drove for a while looking for somewhere convenient to turn around. Out of the blue we spotted a sign "BYWAY". The magic word that we had been hunting for all day... and look, no restriction!

We took one look. It looked OK. Very lush and green but the ground seemed firm enough to take the weight of our trusty shogun and anyway... shogun's don't get stuck right? Yeah right.

There are six of us in the car, Myself, Rose (my wife), Saff (14), Kai (8), Luke (5) and Jas (15 months). Rose takes a look at the track and listens to my reasons for backing out and waiting for the next day when we had a few more cars along.

"Go for it.." she says confidently, "Looks alright, no worse than we've done earlier."

So I go for it.

Now if you've never done one of these lanes you won't realise just how stupid this move could be. The nice firm ground swiftly gives way to softer ground which has been rutted by previous visitors. 18 inch grooves run in the ground and refuse to allow the car to drive out of them, all you can do is go with the flow and hope that you find somewhere to turn around before the mud (which feels a little like super glue) grabs your wheels and holds on tight.

Well grab it it did, and with the light failing rapidly I found I couldn't go further forward. I got out of the car to take a look around and found a bloody great ditch perilously close to the passenger side of the vehicle. OK, so I slipped it into reverse, Extra low 4wd engaged and reversed out of the crap I had landed myself in. 3 point turn executed with perfect precision and strated back the way I had come.

Now its a funny thing because you would think that having driven down the track; going back would not be a problem. Not so. As I approached the stickiest, deepest ruts yet... Rose pointred out that on the way down I had stuck to the drier ground on the right. Too late... the car stopped. That's to say the forward motion stopped but the wheels continued to spin furiously, trying desperately to gain some traction but digging us deper into the mud.

OK. I know what to do, gather some of the brush which lined the track and put it under the wheels, hey presto extra traction. Out of the car we got, Rose and me. Instant glue shoes, my boots gathered another 15 lbs of mud and I sunk right up to my ankles. Rose followed and she did exactly the same.. and then I called on Saff to give us a hand.

Now, if I asked you what you considered the ideal footwear for this sort of outing, you may suggest stout boots (like I wore), good trainers (like Rose wore), but you would hopefully never suggest bare feet with jelly shoes...( like saff wore). They lasted three steps and became a permanent part of the track. In a few hundred years' time, some archaeologist is going to dig them up and try to fathom how the hell they got there.

Anyway, we failed in our attempts miserably. We were stuck fast with no back up plan for getting out.

When all else fails, it's time to swallow your pride and call in the cavalry. In our case that meant Brett, our friend from the previous week.

He was stuck on the M1 but as soon as he got home de came dashing to our aid. Thank god for Sat Nav. At least I could tell him where we were.

So we sat tight for three hours. Brett turns up and has us loose in about 5 minutes flat!

It was great... finalloy we were moving again, making headway toward the exit, the children breathed a sigh of relief, Luke was almost tasting his Macdonalds, even Rose allowed herself a smile of relief. And then it happened again!

Following the landie out of the mire, we got stuck in the same ruts it had just gone through, and getting us out this time was a little tougher!

Fifteem minutes and we were back on the road, covered in mud, but ready to go home!

When I find out how, I'll upload some photos, but for this beginner here this was a wake up call. If it hadn't been for Brett coming to our rescue we'd have been spending the night! (well maybe not quite)

That's about it for now.. except to say... we're going back to the same one tomorrow. Hopefully to find out where I made the mistakes and cruise through without any problem. I'll keep you up to date on the progress.

Cheers

C