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.
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:
A quick Get Out & Stay Out trip up to the Mendip hills in Somerset, driving some excellent greenlanes along the way. It was the first week of February so pretty cold, but we used Australian “swag bags” (like a ‘bivvy’ bag, with sleeping bag inside) and the “campfire tent” which stays open to the campfire and so we were pretty warm. Highlights were seeing some Roe deer up close, and cooking some fantastic local rump steak on sticks over the fire.
The tent used here is a special beast: hemp cotton canvas “Campfire Tent” based on a traditional North American “Baker Tent” design, but built with modern materials and fittings, and a fantastic modular design that’s ideal for Land rover camping, with front or side entrances, mozzie net covered windows and ventilation flaps and comes with a full inner tent and various configurations of poles etc. Easily attachable to any Landy either at the rear or side, but works free-standing too. With a campfire out in front it is THE camp experience tent as far as I’m concerned- who wants to be locked away in a plastic, noisy dome tent, missing all the wildlife and views abround you. It’s available from the manufacturer, specialist tent, tipi and tarp designers “Green Outdoor” and they have a big sale on curently so well worth checking out. I’ll be featuring the tent here rigged up to my Landy shortly.
We just spent 2 days out and about in the Somerset’s Mendip hills, in the deep snow that we were lucky enough to get this year (speaking as Landrover drivers of course, everyone else is fed up of it!). Day two featured a nice rescue job for us. On top of the Mendip plateau there’s a depression at Charterhouse, where the lane dips down into a small valley, where ancient Roman and older copper mines are found and the landscape is pitted and worked making it a real magical place – in the snow it looked even more wild and rugged. So traversing this fantastic landscape in very cold and fog-bound conditions when we came around the bend in the depression we found an astravan stuck in the snow, unable to make it up the climb. He’d gotten into the valley OK but couldn’t get out at either end – by the time we arrived he’d been there 2 hours, with no mobile signal and was resorting to try and dig out the snow ahead of his vehicle, using a dustpan and a screwdriver – he’d managed about 8 feet, so only another 400 or so to go. Anyway, lucky chap the LRE crew turned up well equipped with a TD5 defender and Hicap, and Simon “The Engineer” had his tow rope out again in no time for another rescue. He’s used it plenty in recent days, delivery vans, a milk float and even a forklift have been pulled out of the snow by his trusty TD5!
Here’s the video of the trip and the ‘rescue-event’
A Landrover really comes into it’s own in this weather – Landrover owners everywhere having been getting out and about all over the UK as it’s blanketed with snow, while other car drivers skid and slide and get stuck in hedges! Some Landrover drivers are helping out with their local emergency response teams – I’ve done one rescue so far, and elderly lady and family stuck in a Saab estate unable to get back home after a trip to the doctor – They were only a quarter mile from home and I was able to help her get back in, with the aid of a step I keep in the back. But it’s a great feeling of invincibility you get with a Landy in this weather, and being able to really Get Out there and enjoy what is absolutely stunning winter wonderland scenery is just fantastic – no need to be stuck indoors in this weather. Here’s a video of a quick local trip.
Some photos of a Winter “Get Out” trip up in the Mendip hills – no reason for you or the youngsters to be stuck in doors when you have a Landrover to conquer the snowy roads and lanes…
A run through the Cheddar Gorge in heavy rain – what a drive though, the road goes right through tiny gaps in great walls of rock and it winds and winds it’s way up the gorge… this is speeded up, you might get a bit dizzy!
A short drive around the southern area of the Mendip hills ending up near Ebbor Gorge, looking out over Glastonbury Tor from where the Mendip hills drop away to the fantastic Somerset Levels – in some stormy November conditions!
