Friday 3 June 2011

It's Gripped! It's Sorted!

It was a bit of a Homer present.

I bought my wife a 4x4 off road experience through Into The Blue. As luck would have it, they were doing 2FOR1 at the time. What a stroke of luck.

When someone says "Off Road" to me, my immediate response goes something like this:



Clearly you are not going to get 8 miles of sweat and terror in a former landfill site in Reading, but that wasn't going to stop us having some fun in someone else's Land Rover for the afternoon.

Our instructors, who take people round a labyrinth of trenches and hills as a break from their day jobs, were very supportive and friendly, constantly giving tips on how to navigate the tricky courses. No surprises really, as they were bringing their own vehicles for chumps like me to drive.

The motto is "As slow as possible, as fast as necessary", the polar opposite to some people's driving style, and once we'd got the hang of the low range gears, we were really able to have some fun.

I would imagine on a wet day, the course would be a completely different beast, but it was bone dry, scrabbly and rutted on the day we went. In the two hour session, including 20 minutes briefing, my wife and I drove round 3 different circuits off the course, taking about 50 minutes each. We went up hills I would think twice about walking up, drove on 45 degree slopes and down drops that put some rollercoasters to shame.


When you think about driving experiences, you usually imagine hair-raising speed, bone crunching corners, or at the very least sliding around on a skidpan. This is probably the slowest driving experience there is, but it's because it is so precise and ever so slightly unnerving that it's an ideal way to spend an afternoon with your other half.


At least you can't get told off for driving too slowly.