Well we certainly could not have asked for better weather for our second Drive Round Day of the season up at Wellington today. For the first time in a long time we had more than one Jeep! A really good mix of vehicles attended: Kevin Williams in his Jeep Renegade, Mike Cuff in a well prepared Jeep Cherokee; Tony Dunstone and family with his TDI 90; Richard Watson in a TGV auto 90 and finally Russell Lemon in his trusty series.

The aim was to start off the day up on the island before moving across to the moor. As it turned out in fact we spent the whole day up on the island. The ground was so dry that we could attempt climbs that we had never been attempted before and with great driving skills demonstrated by most of the people present we had a fair degree of success as well! The ground conditions certainly helped us get to places we would not contemplate later in the year.

As there has been a fair amount of tree work up on the Island this also gave us the opportunity to try out some new routes. Not only did it made it testing and interesting it also added some new dimensions to the day and upped the heart rate of more than one or two drives – there are some big drops if the side slopes don’t go to plan!

Russell’s series was not quite as a reliable as it has been in the past. Russell had had a slight ticking from the front around lunchtime and this migrated into a full-on loss of drive to the front wheels; possibly a freewheel hub had failed? Thankfully Richard Watson was on hand with his trusty husky rear winch to help extract Russell and then tow them back to the rendezvous. Thankfully the complete failure only occurred in the last half an hour or so.

We also had another first for a Wellington Drive Round Day on the Island and a Jeep. Kevin Williams who had been leading the convoy, and this first is possibly because he couldn’t quite see the track due to the overgrown bracken, slightly misjudged the entrance to a small hole and we ended up perched right in the middle of it. Thankfully Edward Webber was on hand with a quick bit of winch work (and it should be noted he did work hard all day today) and we were soon up and through. Much to our dismay everyone else then pretty much drove the same section slightly disappointing for us, great for them but it does prove that jeeps do get stuck!