We met up at the Lakes as planned. Lorraine was there even though she had already had a big day leading a group of FJ Cruisers along the track. I was travelling with my son Jeff in our Jeep and Christine was travelling in the Patrol with our other son Jonathon.
We first headed back to Flynn Road and let down our tires. Then Jeff and Lorraine tested out their sus-pension and traction control systems in the offset holes section of the track. Jeff made it with his mechanical diff locks. Lorraine just didn’t make it with a combination of rear mechanical locker and traction control. After a quick pull she was out and off we went. I was in the lead vehicle with Jeffrey driv-ing. The Jeep is light and has good traction but is still a bit low. He had to carefully pick his line to avoid too many scrapes.
All went well with Jeff and Sanjay trying a couple of the tricking canyon climbs. Sanjay didn’t quite make it and when reversing out smashed a light on one of his front flares. Jeff made it all the way to the top of one but could not climb out. So instead of reversing back and probably smashing the sides of the vehicle he elected for a tow and was pulled out by Jonathon in the Patrol. I think Jeff can say he is one of the few 4wdrivers to have been pulled out by three generations of people from the same family (Colin, Tony and Jonathon) over the last 33 years or so!
I challenged Jeff to try the last big climb of the day. He did well and made it clean with use of his lockers.
We reached the end of the track just after dark and pumped up our tyres. Sanjay and the Vagg’s stopped at Hungry Jacks in Mundaring for dinner on the way home. A first for me – two of my vehicles 4wdriving without me driving either one!