Land Rover Explorer, Land Rover Camping, Tents, Green Lanes and Video

Strata Florida and Mid Wales Green Lanes

kevin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:42:24 +0000

Finally finished the video of day two of our trip to Strata Florida and other mid-wales greenlanes: here’s the two together: try viewing full screen as they are in HD video.

Day One:

Day Two:

Enjoy!

Remote Control Defender!

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:31:25 +0000

This is fantastic: a model Defender 90 performing some serious off road manouvres!

Strata Florida & Mid Wales Trip: Day One

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:45:02 +0000

The full length video of Day One of our trip to Mid Wales (Day Two video to follow when it’s ready!):

Land Rover Toys & Models

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:43:05 +0000

There’s an amazing range of tiny Land Rover toys and models around, testimony to the popularity of Landys, for kids and grown-ups, and grown-up kids of course!

Remote Control Land Rover Toys

kevin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:53:39 +0000

There’s lots of Land Rover Model Toys around, but if you want to actually drive a toy Land Rover, instead of taking years developing a shrinking potion, try one of these remote control Land Rovers in your garden. Fun for kids before they’re old enough to drive a real Land Rover, and for the grown-up kids, set up an off road course for your remote control Land Rover in your garden!

Exploring Strata Florida & Mid Wales Lanes

kevin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:31:11 +0000

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

kevin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:29:02 +0000

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!

Land Rover Haynes Manuals

kevin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:06:01 +0000

Amazon is a good place to find the Haynes Workshop manuals you need. They stock both new and used books via the amazon marketplace. Here’s a selection of what’s in thier catalogue currently.

LRO Show – Land Rover Show Shepton Mallet

kevin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:29:16 +0000

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…

kevin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:44:08 +0000

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!

…

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....