Off road Action

Well, we have been laning a few times, we are enjoying ourselves tremendously! Now we decide to try the next level... pay and play!

More by accident than judgement, we were going out laning around Harlow on Saturday morning. Everyone early out of bed (7 am and hey thats really early on a Saturday!) we meet the spyderman and trundle off to Essex. Barely 10 miles out and we don't even make our first lane.

Call the AA and make our way home - My daughter and I in the truck and the rest of the family in the landy with spyderman.

The AA fella really knew how to talk... that famous Irish blarney! He told each story like it was a classic epic and every tale lasted like it was a feature film.

With the rest of the day spent finding new parts for the Shogun, it was decided that tomorrow(Sunday) would merit a trip to devils pit, an off road course near Luton.

Sunday: Got a pass from Rose to go out to play for a few hours and took Kai with me. Amazing how much a small boy likes to ride pillion!

Devils pit. Now what can I say, this is a great experience (especially from the vantage point alongside a more experienced driver.) BUT I gotta tell ya... it can get a little sticky!

This piccy is Kai alongside Spyderman's landy... he's learning as quickly as I am!

Now we all know that the best addition to a vehicle for off roading is tyres. Mikesababes decided to take his disco and new tyres to the party but only drove round the red circuit once!

He also took a couple of friends. Now I was told about a particular mud hole... drive in but no one drives out.

Here we see this friend being dragged out of the mire!

We've all been here right!

BUT no one should try this at home!

Now, the thing about devils pit is the sheer sticky grabbiness of the mud! you really do not want this in your engine, I mean, you really don't. Not just "would prefer not to" but real... oh shit get this off of me!

What can I say, this looney has decided to try the same hole again!

I'll let you know what happens!

You know what? I just found out... the motor is still running! cleaned it out and started it up... needs a new headset but hey! at least its not a throw away! Actually I am really pleased its not too badly damaged. The driver and his girlfriend see like really nice people so a little good luck should go their way.

Keep ya posted!

Wet Stuff

To start with there are a couple of things you should really know. Those guys we met last week, well we found a photo of one of their vehicles. In actual fact this landy looks lovely, but in this pic it is stuck: Look!

Now this is exactly the same spot I got stuck in as well!

Anyway... that's not what this post is about. We decided that since we hadn't done any serious Fords... we should at least try. Spyderman in his wisdom, thought that the best one to start with would be Ferneox Pelham (I have no idea whether that is the correct spelling).

Now, this is not really a ford in the strictest sense. Generally a ford represents a way to cross a river. This particular ford is a route along the river bed... dipping deeply in places.

If you imagine a series of deep holes with a small platform between each you get an idea. Here's a pic of our car on one of those "in between" platforms...

It felt a lot deeper I can tell you... and, of course, we're driving a petrol vehicle not a flaming diesel. A diesel would swim through this with the greatest of ease, as amply demonstrated by the land rovers that went before and the one that pulled me out when my engine stopped!

And then just to make things worse we went down again!

Surely this is being done to humiliate our poor shogun. It has to be a conspiracy of landy owners. perhaps the fact that the forum we use is called landroverstryingtohumiliatejapanesecardrivers.co.uk could have been seen as a hint! Actually thats not true, we use landy zone a forum with members in our neck of the woods, (and despite the fact that we have a shogun they have all been pretty cool. So if you have a shogun and you fancy offering a little moral support feel free to drop by!)

I think that this was the killer run. The one where our engine gave out completely and we had to be rescued by other more capable vehicles. A thousand thanks to the man who invented WD40. I do have an idea about fitting condoms to the HT leads and using a femidom on the distributor cap, however I can see a strange conversation looming next time I take the car in for a service. I know for a fact that my favourite mechanic is not gonna want to handle one of my used condoms.

There's always someone willing to show you how it hould have been done. Spyderman creating a bow wave, which is apparently useful if you intend keeping the water out of the engine compartment.

So that was our first experience of fording. We headed back once our car got started... not because we were chicken at all... but I had a gig playing in Dunstable on Saturday night and couldn't risk being late! All in all we had a good day, the car's a little wet inside and is spending the week drying out.

My mate Jim and his wife Jan have a Shogun. It's a little tidier than mine (certainly is now!) but I think they would really benefit from a littel mild laning like this. I did ask if they'd like to join us for a relaxing afternoon drive in the country. In the interests of decency I shall not repepat the answer they gave, but suffice to say that if I were double jointed enough to follow their instructions... I'd die a happy man.

Anyhow I digress:

As it turns out; the man primarily responsible for getting me out of the crap this week, a fella called Jai_Landrover on the forums, also had a wonderful file which found its way to my machine and details the locations of all fords and green lanes in the country. Well, you know what I'm like... you just gotta make sure its accurate so we go take a look.

You know what we found... 1 ford, 1 restricted byway so we couldn't use it anyway... and a really long byway that is not on the system because it is technically a highway!

So... maybe check a few of those out this week.

More later.