The full length video of Day One of our trip to Mid Wales (Day Two video to follow when it’s ready!):
Exploring Strata Florida & Mid Wales Lanes
A short video trailer for our trip to mid-wales – the weather was pretty bad but that just made it more of an adventure. We drove Strata Florida in the rain which was fantastic, camping along the route in the back of the Land Rovers. Here’s a taster, a full length video coming soon…
Land Rover Camping – Austin Stevens Tarp Rig
Snake-hunter, adventurer & Photographer Austin Stevens showed up on TV recently tracking Leopards in Africa – driving a One-Ten pickup safari-wagon and he had this clever tent set up in the back of the truck! He just parked under a tree, hoisted the beam and voila!
[click for larger image]
We’re off to Mid Wales for our own off-road safari adventure shortly, and hope to employ various tarps and australian swag-bag sleeping set-ups… will report back after the trip!
LRO Show – Land Rover Show Shepton Mallet
Only 1 week to go to the big Land Rover show at the Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet near Bristol on June 19th & 29th. Last year it was a great event complete with every kind of Land Rover, Club displays, Land Rover jumble, tonnes of tents and camping gear, trade stands and a GREAT off road course provided by Xtreme Offroad, who run various off road motorsports activities in the South West on several large sites including the off road course at Shepton Mallet, which has been recently developed to deliver even more 4×4 thrills and spills. Massive drop-offs and steep climbs, a chunky rock steps section, deep mud wading pools and a new tunnel in the centre of the course lets you hear the roar of your vehicle’s engine like no-where else!
I was on the course recently with the guys from Xtreme Offroad, here’s a quick video of what to expect. But make sure you don’t miss the Land Rover show itself, where you can do driver training, be taken around by an expert off road driver and even bring your own Land Rover and take it around the course.
Land Rover Camping: Safari Tent…
The options for Land Rover Camping are endless of course, but a few designs are of special interest:
The OzTent from http://uk.oztent.com…
The OZ Tent - collapsible framed tent
the CaranEx… (see ukcampsite.co.uk/tents/ )
The CaranEx as Land Rover Tent - shown with Defender 110 CSW
and of course Roof Tents:
Australian Land Rover Roof Tent
There’s a new option from specialist tent, tipi and tarp manufacturer “Green Outdoor” called the “Campfire Tent”. It has some advantages over the Oztent (won’t fit in a 90 when folded down at 2M – won’t even fit on most 90 roofracks except diagonally which takes up a lot of space) and the CaranEx (lacking in features and still fairly expensive) and Roof Tent (hugely expensive and can’t be used as free-standing tents, also they take up all the roofrack space generally. I’ve been testing the Green outdoor offering and am enormously impressed – at £499 (currently on sale) it’s well worth looking at as it makes a fantastic Land rover tent as well as a perfect “safari-style” free standing tent. You can even pitch it in front of the campfire (hence the name) and have the heat reflect around the tent for maximium warmth as well as that true “fireside” experience.
The front opens out to give you wide open views of whatever country you’ve driven so hard to get to, whether it be Morrocan mountains, the African Savanna or the Welsh hills. The tent is very well featured in terms of doors, windows, full mozzie netting, full inner tent, as well as a modular design in terms of side wings, front awning etc. On top of that, and the killer feature for me is that it’s cleverly made out of natural materials – Chinese Hemp Cotton canvas specifically, in a beautiful soft brown colour that at the same time both stands out and blends in with Nature. The material is also waterproofed so the canvas can remain thinner than traditional cotton canvas, and therefore it’s doesn’t have that heavy weight, especially when wet that puts so many people off canvas traditional tents. But it retains the look (and feel, and even the sound) of classic “safari tents” of old, and that really adds something to the experience when you’re out in the bush.
Here’s some pictures of the tent set up with my Land Rover 110 HCPU, where it fits perfectly at the rear of the vehicle, allowing easy access through rear, with use of the tailgate for kitchen duties, and yet you can drive off easily and close the front of the tent up, or move the vehicle during the day and shelter form either the sun or rain under the big awning. Side doors and wings zip on or off easily making it very flexible. You can of course put the tent side-on to the vehicle as well.
I’ll be using this set up a lot now as it’s proved perhaps the perfect 4×4 tent, with some real advantages over the other options, and at a very reasonable price you get something unusual, fit for purpose and really a thing of great beauty, as well as a solid piece of gear that will last a lifetime or close to hopefully. So, in short, I’m impressed!
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The Tent with one side-wing zipped off, showing the inner tent and mozzie net etc.
The side wing left on, with the side door and mozzie net zipped open.
The side doors also have a ventilation flap which can be opened slightly for air, OR rolled up as a full window - very nice feature and the attention to detail is very high, as is the manufacturing quality.
A view into the interior space and inner tent.
Tailgate Kitchen!!
The Campfire...
The awning fits snugly over the top of the 110 HCPU pickup - it is the right height for most landrovers, and has a single centre guy rope which secures the awning to the vehicle.
The Campfire glows into the night....
Greenlaning Video – April in the Lanes
Here’s the video of our trip last week in the greenlanes of north somerset.
New Discovery
Well a 2nd Land Rover arrived in my life, a new (10-years new) Discovery II in Epsom Green! Purchased from DBC 4×4 in Derby and delivered by trailer, pulled by guess what a Discovery I workhorse of course! Low range box engaged it hauled the shiny new Discovery & trailer up the 1:7 incline to out house with no problem.
It’s a great car and replaces our 7 seat family VW Touran; the Disco has 7 seats with 2 proper forward facing rear seats, with easy access to them for the kids through the large rear door, unlike the VW… Other things not like the VW (and also a long way from my Defender too!) are fantastic luxury like full leather, climate control, heated seats & windscreen and so on, and of course enormous off road ability; but overall it’s a great family car we’re really happy with, and of course it’s Landy so that makes it better right off, the kids love it almost as much as the Defender.
Disco II arrives, hauled along by a Disco I!
Disco at the Beach....
April Sunshine in the Lanes…
A day out around the lanes of North Somerset – the tracks were dry and dusty after 3 weeks of sunshine and no rainfall – what happened to “April Showers?”!
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Late Winter Greenlanes
It’s almost over, the longest coldest winter for 30 years that is. Currently we are getting fantastic blue skies, bright sunshine but still with a bitterly cold wind and sub-zero temperatures at night. Spring is just around the corner now… surely. But this late winter has a character all of it’s own – I took a trip out in the sunshine around the Chew Valley and Mendips and did a couple of nice greenlanes, Nordrach and Dursdon Drove, here’s the video:
