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Mitsubishi 4WD Owners Club of Qld (Inc) |
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DAP - Sept '07 |
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DAP - September '07Students: Minna Ludlow, John Hemming, Andrew Hemming, Tony Ritchie, Rob Henshaw, Chris Lockyer, Alan Ball, Lisa Nehring, Aaron Urquhart Advisers: Alan Rowe, Peter Ward, Jeff McLean, Eric Newmann and Andrew Hatfield and then there was the DAP New Advisers Weekend too - see below. WELL! Where to begin? After first joining the Queensland Mitsubishi 4WD Club back in 2003 in our old Paj we carefully avoided the DAP and stuck to the easy and scenic trips. The DAP, read big, scary monster, just wasn’t that important or interesting. After all, we can all drive can’t we? Nothing too hard about going over a bit of mudding grass… Wrong, wrong WRONG. Move on a few years, we’ve rejoined the Club after a leave of absence and we bought a new truck. I bit the bullet, we wanted to go to Fraser for Christmas and thought, just to keep the Club happy, we’ll do the bl**dy DAP course. Decided to go down Friday afternoon, ‘cos I still can’t get up that early in the mornings! Finding the general location of Brooklyn was fairly easy, in fact at 9pm I was within 500m of the guys already there, but had to get on the radio to Eric, thankfully listening out for dimwits like me. Eric came and got me, I’d missed the gate and gone 100m past and had ended up at the homestead. So with great trepidation, I got up nice and early (about 8am for me) and readied the truck and myself for the first day. There were nine students and five instructors. After signing our lives away and disclaiming any rights we may have once had, it was time for Alan to give the briefing. It was at this point that I started to realize that this weekend was going to be fun, and probably useful to boot. First up was the stall recovery, in reverse (reverse gear that is! My truck was to be used as the demo vehicle. Now I was nervous. Not to worry, Andrew and Alan did a great job, explained it all in simple terms, showed us how and we all had great fun practicing. What just happened? I was enjoying myself AND I’d already learnt something new, WOW! We had so much fun that we all tried bigger and bigger hills, just to practice our stall recoveries. Special note at this point should go to Andrew Hemming is his new Triton Ute, there was a hill with a step cut in to it, that Andrew had many, many attempts to conquer, and conquer he did. The rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur, so forgive me if I don’t get all this in the right order. We practiced our loose rock ascents, climbing a hill, a rocky hill with lots of loose shale means wheel spin, how weird does it feel to lift off the throttle going up hill to get more grip? Weird, but it works! Learnt something else, umm, I see a pattern emerging. We were led by our intrepid leaders round the park in a lovely scenic drive, to the next challenge. Knowing where your hat is at. Perhaps I should say, knowing where your wheel is at! We had a practice at finding our wheels. Using yellow blocks, we were charged with driving around a circular course and placing the appropriate wheel on the correct block, this is where I learnt that sometimes my left is actually on my right, oops. Saturday night was a spent huddled around our small cooking fire (open camp fires are banned so we were only allowed a small, read 2-3 metre across). Just to make things interesting Andrew Hatfield, one of the advisors, decided to impale himself whilst putting some wood of the fire. A splinter managed to get itself under his finger nail, right up to the quick, ouch! Andrew, one of our intrepid students, also a vet, had several goes on the operating table (read camp kitchen table), but couldn’t get to it. A few more Bundy and Cokes and Andrew went off to bed. He reappeared in the morning, so I guess he lived. Sunday morning we (I) awoke to the rousing call of Alan Rowe (adviser and master of ceremonies) doing he rounds asking if we were awake yet, I mean it was almost 7am after all. Day two was where it all started to come together. We went off into the paddocks, a simple scenic drive, I thought. Nooooo we ended up at the rock ledge… A simple rock step, or so it would seem. It caused a bit of trouble to most of us, a few lines were tried but we all made it up OK, albeit a couple of the team needed a little helping hand (read tug) to get over the final top bit. Time for another special mention; for Rob and his Kia Sorrento. Kia wouldn’t be my first thought when thinking of a car to take off road playing. But with Rob driving and the car’s capabilities it managed the ‘rock’ with ease, and everything else that was thrown at it (another point learnt). Halfway through the day, Rob found the low range button, before that he had been doing everything in high range! So from that point onwards Rob was known as ‘Low Range’. Now, I am on a diet. Not a real one, just balancing what and when I eat, so this means eating at regular intervals. Somehow this got translated in to me munching rather a lot. The next point of considerable note was our controlled decent. Wow. Going down a steep decline in low ratio and all wheels turning and the car sliding, because the car was moving faster down the hill than the wheels were turning. Only fix is to press the accelerator. That seems really weird, but luckily it works really well, proving once you have grip again you CAREFULLY use the brakes to slow you back down again. We all got down safe and sound, I was really enjoying myself. For those of them that know me, that’s a bit of statement, I’m not called grumpy pants for nothing! The final drive of the day saw us putting everything we learnt in to practice. We all managed and had a fantastic time, so much so Alan, our intrepid leader, decided to stop at Skull hill. “Who wants to have a go at that hill?” he asked. The silence was absolutely deafening. After what seemed like three months, I foolishly volunteered to make an attempt. Even more foolishly, Andrew Hatfield offered to come with me and navigate. I lined up truck, boy that hill looked steep, only one big rut, right up the middle, a simple off camber turn about halfway up. I managed to get up OK. Andrew (vet) followed me up in the Triton Ute. Lots of wheel spin but up it went, straight to the top. Next up went John in his ‘air-locked’ Pajero, easy up and looked great doing it. No one else wanted to have a go, so off we trundled back to camp to pack up, take some final photos and say our goodbyes. In short, an absolutely bl**dy fantastic weekend, lots of fun jolly good company and hell we all learned something to boot! I’d highly recommend it to everyone. If you don’t want to go as a student, then go on the adviser’s course (once you’ve already got your DAP covered) then you can go as often as you want as an adviser. Fantastic. Thanks guys, awesome. Alan Ball
DAP NEW ADVISERS’ WEEKEND27-28 OctoberADVISERS: Alan Rowe, Jeff McLean, Andrew Hatfield, Alan Hughston, Greg Conlon, Michael van der Velden NEW ADVISERS: Lloyd Akeroyd, Mark Anderson, Debbie Doherty, Stephen Doherty, Greg Dunstan, Allan Puckridge, Peter Warren, Richard Murphy You’ve heard of the saying “what happens on tour, stays on tour” well the same applies with the DAP Adviser’s weekend – what I can tell you, is that we got up to a bit of mischief and had a lot of fun and still learnt a lot at the same time. On Friday night four members arrived via the detour as the main road into Brooklyn had been closed due to upgrading of the road. Stephen and I had been a bit concerned setting up camp as the weather on the way down was not looking the best, but by the time we arrived it was full moon and stars and thankfully a dry camp. Saturday saw the remainder of the advisers and new advisers arrive by 9am, set up camp before we got stuck into the nitty gritty of the course. This was a weekend where the advisers actually played the “student” (much to their pleasure) and we the students were the “advisers” and had to pick up on anything the “students” did wrong. We went through the same steps that the DAP students would normally go through but from an adviser’s point of view. A few of the advisers brought their toys – not their normal family cars, but their toys and did they have fun. It was great to see the advisers actually play under a controlled environment?? Andrew decided to bring his Patrol out of retirement to have a bash, it was well worth it. Alan Rowe brought along his shorty, which was great for me, cause it gave me an insight as to what these little beasts can do. We caught up with Terry (the owner of Brooklyn) later in the afternoon, who kindly took us through the other side of his property behind his rifle range and showed us some of the old tracks, which haven’t been used for sometime, but were definitely worth driving on. Happy hour pretty much started on time, I tell you ladies, these gentlemen can certainly put on a happy hour when they want to, you should have seen the food that came out – I think we need to play up to this. After dinner we sat around the fire and sang while Greg Conlon played his guitar to the moonlight of the evening. Most of the boys were up pretty early on Sunday, you certainly couldn’t sleep in, what with the birds and the Hereford cows following Terry in his truck thinking they were going to get their daily feed. After breakfast we had the briefing on how to winch a vehicle out of a difficult situation, this time Mikey just stood in the dam and pretended he was drowning – it was bone dry. Then it was on to the ledge, and we all know that ledge. It’s not that bad, it’s all in the approach. All those present and accounted for made it up the ledge, with a lot of laughs in the process. I have to say I am very impressed in the new NS VRX Pajero and how it managed its way though the course, now that I have seen how it goes through, there is no need for me to take the Shorty up it. Thanks Maca! After some of the boys decided to have a try at a steep sidetrack and in some cases a few attempts, it was back to camp by noon for lunch, a briefing on the weekend and then pack up. It was a great weekend, a lot of laughs, conversation and a bit of mischief and a few crackers. Thank you very much on behalf of the New Advisers to Alan and the boys, without you fellows we wouldn’t be the drivers we all are today. Thanks Boys. Debbie Doherty PS: For those of you who haven’t done your DAP course, especially the ladies please give it some serious consideration. Not only does it give you self confidence in your own driving skills but (let’s hope this never happens) you just might be called upon to get not only yourself but others out of a situation that not many can’t do. It is a lot of fun, learn a lot and achieve things never thought possible. Put it on your MUST DO list!
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