4x4 Adventures Ltd Taunton, Somerset
(6034521)
Wellington Drive Round Day – 15th April 17
Words and pictures by James Trembath

It was great to get back on to our ‘summer’ Drive Round Day site at Wellington last Saturday. With the weather having been so kind over the winter it meant we had plenty of new tracks we could explore, some of them we haven’t used for around five years. This meant with the regulars returning they had something new to entice them in and keep them on their toes.

Tony Hedley brought along two new crews to join us for the day, unfortunately one of the vehicles didn’t make it to the site with wheel bearing problems (Jason’s vehicle) the previous day. However, we managed a full complement with Scott Copping, Russell Lemon, Paul De Bono, Tom Preston and Paul Radford making up the team.

The mix of vehicles from Discovery to Series to Defender, from td5 to Tdi to petrol with a good mix of standard to fully modified shows that everything road legal can pretty much turn up, have a go and have good, safe, fun. There are plenty of challenging sections and also plenty of bypasses if you don’t feel it’s up to you or your vehicle’s ability, you just give it a bypass. We have guides on hand to assist with recovery and route selection and of course lead you around the main and bypass routes.

For our first time ever we didn’t stray from the Island! The Island forms a large chunk of the Drive Round Route and with the new routes being available on it we had plenty to do there alone to fill the day. There are two other sections at the Wellington site all of them offering a good mix of steep hills, side slopes and the odd bog/water section or two!

As ever the ground under tyre changes with each passage of a vehicle. The changes on the Island seem to be magnified with the amount of leaf mulch that is rotting down under foot. This means sometimes the first few vehicles need numerous attempts to clear a route through whilst on other occasions the first few will make it no problem but the spinning wheel of a later vehicle creates problems as the conditions change. Russell seemed to make light work of the ground conditions for the majority of the day, although the lack of power steering makes it look anything but light work! Russell did however succumb to a few ground clearance issues at times! Luckily Scott was on hand to help out – he really does like using that new winch!

We had a fair amount of winching on the day. Far more than a normal day. Some of it due to new drivers and new routes some of it due to just getting things a little wrong! Some of it because Scott just wanted to make use of his winch it seemed! The new route I think caught some of the regulars out, which shows it’s good for variety to keep people on their toes!

Tony in his 90, had encouraged Tom (tdi Discovery) to come along and join us for the day. Tom and Phil (with Jason hitching a lift in the back) haven’t done a great deal of off roading, (their own admission), so were soon in at the deep end but with Tony on hand to help out as required any obstacle was soon overcome, although it did take a bit of rigging on some occasions! Hopefully, they enjoyed the day and will be back for more in due course.

Paul and Paul, in Td5 Discovery and Defender made some of it look very easy, then on the other hand the odd section caught them out too which is good to see! It was great to have them back as regulars and also superb that they both booked in, as did Tony for the next one straight away. Thank you.


Some pictures from the day