Driving a 4 Wheel Drive

Has anyone ever driven off-road in a 4-Wheel Drive. I hadn’t. Until this trip. Day Two was the day in which we learned how to 4WD

We started off in the classroom. Now the idea of a classroom and learning theory turns most people colder than a summer’s day in Ireland.

However, this class was different. You know the class is going to be a good one when the guy comes in, dressed like Steve Irwin, drenched with sweat, ready to teach. Great. He introduced to photos similar to the following…..

After those awesome photos I was ready to get into it. There was some other stuff about checking the depth of croc infested river crossing by walking it. Yup Walking it. 

We all hopped in the 4WDs and drove out of town. We arrived at the beach and the instructor took turns with each of us going through the loose sand and an off road hill start in reverse. I just want to take a bit of time to describe the awesomeness off the Toyota Land Cruiser. Did you know that if you engage low wheel drive and the put it into first gear the car drives itself. Seriously it picks up if you're going downhill and slows down and it picks up if you're going uphill and puts the revs up. Seriously, all you have to do is steer. Now you're not going very fast but horses would have trouble with this type of terrain. 

Then we hit the beach but this time it wasn't with towels and sun cream. We let the tyres down and went drifting. We learned how to pull another car out after it had gotten stuck. Then the "Piece de Resistance". Gravel road braking. In order to show us what would happen should Skippy The Bush Kangaroo bounce out in front of you we had to get the 4WD up to speed then jam on the brakes, hard. 

I've never had to come to a stop from speed before so this was really good fun. This was the day I learned that it takes about 80m of skidding to stop from 100kph. 

Then we were ready for our camping trip.