Give off-road driving a go – its more fun than you can possibly imagine

Land Rover

Land RoverA friend of mine is not a typical sort of guy.

He spends most of his time fishing and when he is not fishing he is getting all muddy and filthy in his off-road Land Rover. Now, this is not usually my sort of thing – but last weekend he invited me to have a go at doing some real off road driving.

Firstly, we met in a very muddy field just outside the Cotswolds, where the sheep were roaming and the nearest pub was 10 miles away. Not a good start for me to be honest, because I never really like to be more than a stone throws away from some Scampi & Chips in a basket.

He started off by saying you have nothing to worry about! If we get stuck, all we have to do is dig her out. To be honest, the thought of digging his two ton Land Rover out of a muddy field did not fill me with joy.

Of course, I have been off road before – but that was in a Range Rover with A/C, Leather seats and a very nice stereo. My friends Land Rover however consisted of two bucket seats, a steering wheel, race harness and a sick bag.

Before we got started, he also wanted to talk me through the upgrades on his ‘Landy’. He told me how the wheels had been especially designed for the job, and that he had recently given it a complete set of BFGoodrich All Terrain T/A KO2 tyres. I have no idea what that meant, but according to my friend they are the best of the best when it comes to tyres you can use on and off road.

He then took me through angles of approach etc, etc, etc – till at one point the thought of throwing myself out of an aeroplane without a shoot was looking like a viable option.

Finally I got to give the old ‘Landy’ a go. OMG! I did things in that Land Rover that I could not possibly of ever imagined. We went down steep banks, up steep hills, around muddy tracks all at high speed I have to say.

In the end, the day went really well and I came away thinking… actually, you know what? That was brilliant.

So, the next time you get the chance to do some real off road driving, jump at the chance because you might just enjoy it.  By Anthony Yates

 

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