We decided to head up on the Saturday morning for Maria’s training in the Stage 2 DTU. Leaving home just before 6am, refueling both ourselves and the truck, we headed out to We-Leaser, Dungog.
The DTU Team consisted of Neale, Bob, Steve, Lachlan and Bev. Like in past written reports, a big thanks goes out the team, who do share the responsiblity of training, but without the services of these individuals, each month for a period of 3 years, the club training and trips would not be possible. So THANK YOU!
We arrived just on 8am. It was a horrible start to the day, with grey skies hanging low, threatening rain. It had rained during the night at We-Leaser and so the ground was wet. It’s going to be an interesting day of training.
We pulled up ready to start the first stage of the day’s training – the vehicle inspection, what is involved in starting any journey. Since I was also present when Narelle did her training the month before, I decided to keep a low profile so that those who were present could become more involved they were Greg, Tony, Matt and English Matt. It was a quiet morning with Greg in the red disco (Land Rover Discovery) being volunteered to share this vehicle and pre trip knowledge.
A good shake, rattle and roll. Check of the tyres, wheel nuts, under chassis, under bonnet – to check hoses and oil and liquid gauges as well as lights, roof racks. The skies still looked grey but the rain held off.
Next onto changing tyres.
Tony was volunteered for the first of the tyre changes. It’s important to note that any time there is a club trip on, it really does become a team effort to change a tyre. It’s just not about offering advise, but assisting in getting the required equipment to help the process of changing a tyre. It’s also interesting to note, that you can never assumption that the equipment that comes with the vehicle is designed to lift your vehicle. Our Nissan Narava D22 – comes with a scissor lift jack. It still is stored behind the back seat and is never used. Instead we purchased a 8000kg bottle jack. So far on both training days, it was been used to assist others when struggling to lift their vehicle. Placement of the jack is also important. A frustrating situation can be noted if you make an incorrect placement (even when this may be the manufacturers preferred placement) if it only lifts the chassis. Placement of the jack is critical to lift vehicle and tyre to get the change happening.
Boys, a tip from a female about tyre changes, brute force will only go so far. Lifting a tyre any sort of distance is heavy WORK. (In fact the physics equation is Work = Force x distance)
Huff and a puff is harder work. A long handle shovel can be used as a lever to assist you in many ways to change a tyre. Down came the long handled shovel and was used to lift the tyre up and down during the wheel change. Of course that was after English Matt and Tony struggled with the tyre. 15inch 4×4 all terrain tyre – weighs 30kgs, as the size of the wheel increased so does the weight. 17inch – 35 – 55 kgs. Ouch! Carrying some spare wheel nuts is also a great idea. Wheel nuts can rattle off with the motion of the vehicle particular in badly corrugated dirt roads or be lost during tyre changes.
The weather was changing and it was just starting to roll off the mountain, with heavy mist and light rain. After morning tea break we then began to practice our snatch strap recovery. Protocol is such that if needing to be recovered, we use equipment of the stuck vehicle, so long as it is in good condition and appropriately weighted. We each had the opportunity to be recovered and to recover others. This ensured we had the opportunity to feel what it felt like in both situations. Here we struck our most unpleasant weather. That light rain came down so our wet weather gear came out. It actually gave us a good feel of the process as our tyres really did spin before gripping in the wet grass.
Bob was organized today or rather Monica organized Bob and just reminded him of where his lunch was. I believe it was a chicken sandwich!
Now it was onto the track work with our trainer, Lachlan, on board. The tracks were not difficult, care just had to be taken on wheel placement to negotiate a few larger obstacles and to make things just a little bit more interesting from the pervious month the track was wet and muddy. Just that little bit of rain and a few vehicle over the track changed the conditions to which we have experienced the month earlier. With standard everything on the Nissan and a very low clearance height extra care was needed. Driving out of We- Leaser, up the incline and deep ruts. Being tail end Charlie – the track was churned up. On the first attempt the Nissan slipped over the side and down the rut. I stopped the vehicle and reversed back down. We decided to get out and walk the track to pick a different line in an attempt not to slide. A line was talked about and attempted. The line was perfect but too slippery and the vehicle again was struck in a rut. We had to come up with another strategy as now the big boulder that we had to avoid was directly behind the vehicle, no reversing option here. Our tyre pressure was down to 22psi, maybe we could lower the pressure to about 18 psi? What else could we do? Build up the track. Grabbing rocks from nearby, we placed these rocks into the rut to give the vehicle traction – we hope. The recovery gear was not out yet. Our rolled up recovery tracks (engineered rubber with galvanized steel core cable links which fit neatly in to our drawer system) – we don’t carry the TRED or other big boy toys. So I think Lachlan was a little nervous as to what may be the next step if the road building was unsuccessful. It was a great experience to witness and be part of the decision making. Up and over! The road building did the trick and we were able to radio back to the team that we had cleared the rut and was on our way. It was a sense of achievement and a great learning opportunity.
In just a month the track had changed and become more overgrown as the canopy really closed in the track. It rained on and off during the drive, water everywhere. It was interesting to drive in such conditions and a great learning experience. We both have learnt so much from both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 training days.
Back to camp for the theory session before heading out again on the night drive. Again it rained. It really is quite eerie in those mist covered tracks at night. In some places it also became quite slippery. Understanding the difference in what your spotties do is also important – pencil beam and wide flood light however these are problematic in misty conditions so we were back down to low or normal driving lights. Again just seeing how limited your visibility is during a night drive is a great learning experience.
Again a BIG THANK YOU – to all the trainers – Neale, Bob, Steve, Lachlan and Bev for giving up their time and the energy. What a marvellous job our DTU team does and how very grateful we are for having this opportunity to improve our driving techniques.
Oh, and we’d also like to dedicate this story to our beloved Simon (our chipmuck from Alvin and the Chipmuck fame). He was our mascot who was strapped to the front of the roof rack along with Kermit the Frog (from the Muppets). Sadly we lost Simon on this voyage, we assumed wiped away from the overhanging brush on the track. As for Kermit, he too was horribly speared and ripped, with a 10 cm gash to his face. After some bed rest and a few switches, we think that Kermit will recover but he has valiantly decided to retire from 4×4 driving. As for Snake, (also on the roofrack), its not the same without Simon and Kermit so he has also decided to retire. Bob thinks that Simon will be walking back to home, 6 months from now we may be surprised,– we are hoping. (Sadly Bev is not so compassionate and believes he is lying in the mud with a good set of Cooper tyre tracks over his forehead!)
Maria and Narelle.