DAP 30 - 31 May 2009

Ladies - give the DAP a go, at either Brooklyn or The Springs 4x4

Having been advised by DAP organiser, Graeme, that the Brooklyn camp site was up to 50mm underwater in places, the latest batch of Mitsubishi 4WD Club raw, and not so raw, recruits, found themselves driving to The Springs 4x4 Camping & Adventure Park.
The Springs is located on the New England Highway between Warwick and Stanthorpe. If you are unfamiliar with The Springs, and are considering where to play next, their website includes a coded map to the terrain and tracks.
Our collective driving to the venue was taking place on a cool Stanthorpe pre-winter morning, with beautiful clear skies (and Yes … before you ask, Sat night campfire was indeed cold). There were four vehicles and drivers ready to start by 9.30am;  Ben Giuliano in his Pajero, Chris Duncan in his Mitsubishi Triton, David Rusis also in his Triton, and myself, the writer, Sylvia Edwards in “His” gold Toyota Land Cruiser.

Let’s clarify first though, why the drivers were a mix of old and new club recruits. Two of the members attending were enthusiastic new members; Ben and Chris (see Chris’ member profile in Vol 23 (5) p.42). The other two DAP “recruits” have been involved with The Club for many years; Eric Rusis’s son David, and myself. Many of you will remember David for his participation in numerous club trips with his parents over the past few years. David decided it was time to gain his DAP, as he wanted to lead a trip or two of his own. So remember to look out for more Rusis (junior) led trips in the future.

In my case, I participated in a DAP theory day with husband, Rob Edwards, and attended a practical as a passenger/observer to Rob’s DAP at Brooklyn in late 2005. I remember thinking at the time, “So ... now Rob is going to drive into all of these places he has always wanted to try. That’s really great!” Then I also remember thinking ... “Hmm, he can now drive us into places he’s never tried before ... what if he has an accident, and I have to drive the pair of us back out?” I turned to Alan Rowe back in 2005 and asked to be booked in for my DAP in early 2006. For various personal, and mostly valid reasons, my planned DAP practical did not proceed. I won’t bore any of you with the reasons why, and instead say that after 3 years I have finally made good on my promise and drove Rob’s car around for the weekend.
To my fellow ladies in the Club, I assure you, there was certainly some discussion in the Edwards household about this beforehand. These discussions included promises from “Him” not to be angry if I hurt the car, no riotous laughing at my driving attempts was permissible, but grins and stifled chuckles were acceptable, etc.  Suffice it to say, I rather nervously drove into The Springs ready to listen intently, throttle control carefully, trust my vehicle rather than myself,  breathe deeply, and stay calm, ... even if my ex-driver, and now back-seat passenger, couldn’t.

This all means that I have a unique view of this DAP compared to many of you in The Club.  I can compare “His course” and “My course”, which were both led and instructed by Alan Rowe. While I noted that each course covered the same aspects of driving, I did note slight differences. For the remainder of the report then, while you will find the usual description of DAP activities, and the details of the muddy and cold fun of this weekend, I will also weave in some thoughts about the two different DAP’s and the two different venues that I have experienced

Our trainers extraordinaire for this DAP were, Alan Hughson, Graeme Clarke, Debbie Doherty, and of course Alan Rowe. What can one say of such patient people? In any DAP Course the instructors always deserve our praise. I can’t remember who all the instructors were for Rob’s course, but I remember there were eight (or 9) vehicles on that course, compared to the four this time. In each course, the instructors waited for us to take our time, never rushing us, and never asking any of us to go beyond what we were comfortable to try. They genuinely lived the rule: The decision is yours! They swapped from vehicle to vehicle/driver to driver, and calmly reminded us each time of what to look for in the terrain ahead; repeated the manoeuvres and next steps to us over and again, helped us out of the trouble spots we got ourselves into through poor wheel placement, or backing off when we should have kept our momentum going, ... and never once sounded like they were bored, nor annoyed, by our lack of confidence or ability. Thanks Club DAP instructors – all of you - you are worth your weight in diesel!

Getting back to the drive to The Springs then, yes, we arrived and set up camp. We met each other, were reminded of Club protocols and procedures, and were assigned our verbal and written report tasks (thanks Graeme!).Then the real driving began!

Just after 9.30am, we all eagerly set off to the Stall Recovery training site, and along the way learnt the value of dropped tyre pressures to ease the rest of the weekend driving. I remember from the previous DAP that on both occasions when I viewed the Stall recovery site for the first time, I thought, “hmm - this looks a little tough!”  Don’t get me wrong, here - the stall recovery is not the tough part - it’s whether we will even be able to get the vehicle up that hill at all! Something I heard Dave O’Hara say to his wife, Bev, once, flashed through my mind. We were at a 4WD Gymkhana a couple of years ago, and Bev had voiced her negative opinion about her ability to undertake her upcoming driving task. Dave simply said ... “You don’t have to do be able to do it, but the car can!” With that thought firmly in mind, I breathed deep and started off, and sure enough, keeping that throttle pressure right, and the momentum going, up we climbed. As each of us mastered stall recovery, we then also successfully climbed the stall recovery hill. From that promising start, we then all learnt, and practised, Snatch procedures. Full of a little more confidence, we set off for some general driving around Bushman Walk and then returned to camp for lunch. In perfect 20/20 hindsight, these first activities were both very valuable lessons, which were soon to be reinforced.

The usual lunch activities at a DAP then happened. Each DAP participant reflected on their driving ... to ANY poor passer by ... munched away on our pre-selected foodstuff, and most of us visited the local facilities. Having arrived late, I found myself finally checking out our entire Springs venue.
At The Springs there are ample camping areas, spread out across a few different levels, so noise from surrounding campsites is kept to a minimum. Each separate area includes a number of large good campfires sites and a few garbage bins. These are great, as it means there is no carrying “the gunk” home in bags that leak at this venue! As I looked around the site I finally noticed in the middle a large facilities unit. What do I mean by large? This facilities unit looked a little larger than a Shipping Container, has a “his” and a “hers” end to it, and in the middle a disabled access section. The matching his/her ends have at least 3 showers and 3 toilets each ... and ladies – they flushed! Even more importantly, there was no rush of air to the derriere here ... which I can tell you on a cool Stanthorpe weekend, I certainly appreciated. More importantly, they were cleaned each morning! OK - The Springs definitely wins in the venue facilities stakes!

After lunch the driving began again, this time opposite the Office and shop area, in a spot called Walkerbout. Here we had instruction on going up and over woo boys, through a little water, into a ditch or two, and at the same time learning the important lesson of wheel placement. Chris‘s Triton bellied out on his first attempt at the second hump. All 4 wheels off the ground is a desperate sight. David and his Triton speedily put our snatch lesson into practice and helped Chris off the hump. No such problems were experienced by any of us for the rest of this activity, though I must admit to scraping the towbar joint into the ditch. I learnt valuable lessons here regarding taking obstacles a little slower! In reminiscing mode again, I remember watching Rob do this in 2005, and thinking how on earth can anyone learn to do this so quickly. At Brooklyn this was done in the paddock beside the campsite, which is relatively flat. To learn wheel placement at the Springs, while at the same time going up and down woo boys and trying to see over the massive football field of the Toyota bonnet, ... well, enough said! Let me tell you that thanks to our trusty instructors, once again this was far easier for the participant to do, than it looks to the observer.

Having conquered wheel placement, off we went to practice it over logs in a small gully, aptly named, Logs 11. Our instructors also upped the ante a little, asking each of us to stop certain wheels on the top of various logs; using different wheels each time of course! That was actually the easy part, but even after walking through and determining where we would attempt to drive through the gully, getting the line wrong turned out to be a quick lesson for me. For my first attempt at the gully, while I got the wheel placement right over the logs, my run up the rest of the gully proved I’d chosen the wrong line for the ditch at the end. Couple that with backing off momentum at just the wrong time, this all saw me secured fast between the ditch behind me and the ramp out of it in front of me. There was no room left to back out and try again, and road building under the front and rear wheels didn’t help. Having been snatched out by David, Chris decided he would return the snatching favour for me instead, and with little effort, out came the Toyota and I. Yes, I can just hear the cheer in The Club now! Toyota saved by Mitsubishi Triton! But, the best of this activity wasn’t a stuck Toyota, it was the incredible two wheel Pajero salute of Ben’s, and while there is a great video of this, I’m still working on getting the shot from the video. Suffice it to say even Ben admitted he had chosen the wrong line to watch, cause all he could see was blue sky. Unlike myself, Ben kept the momentum going and dropped back to 4 wheels and enjoyed his success! I was a little amazed he wasn’t stuck on his tailgate at the end of that manoeuvre. The most impressive for the weekend, indeed. Well done, Ben!
As the day drew to an end, we drove up to Love Hill for a view over The Springs venue, and a preliminary look at some of the tracks we would tackle on Sunday. It was also a traditional photo shoot opportunity not to be wasted. Check out the Club website for some shots from this area. Then, back down a few tracks to our camping sites for half-past and dinner.

Long before half-past drew to a close, all participants, instructors, and our sole passenger, Rob, found themselves looking at a very clear sky ... and feeling the Stanthorpe cold start to bite. It was going to be a very crisp night indeed! Some logs had been gathered by the faithful before we headed home, but please remember, we were at the Springs because for about 2 weeks beforehand the Queensland drought had finally broken.
The lighting of slightly wet logs was proving a challenge! Campfire challenges are best met by experts, and ex-Queen scout Rob took this one in his stride, earning his dinner for the weekend, I can tell you. He chopped, sawed, and continued to stoke and stack that fire for hours; much to the instructors and participants joint delights. The usual campfire stories were dimpled with eager questions from the DAP’ers about 4WD’ing, and, possibly, exaggerated stories of past trips from the older members of the Club. The only real surprise of the evening coming when Chris and I figured out that we not only worked for the same employer, QUT, but in fact we worked in the same Faculty. Talk about small worlds! As the night drew to a close, we all enjoyed the great view the clear skies gave us of the stars and half moon. We chatted, drank and laughed for a while, but because of the cool evening, we finished with a relatively early night.

As the morning light comes over the hill behind the campsite quite late, Day 2 saw us waking reasonably late for the most part; another benefit of The Springs. After our hearty and warm breakfast, we drove off, past the children’s swing set, and up to a nice clear intersection to learn how to pump a manual winch. The only difference between the venues for this activity, is whether or not one of the vehicles present has an electric winch. So on this trip, there was no demo of a powerful way to do this, but instead the simple pleasure of finding a way to get the blood warmed up on a cold morning.

Just as well the DAP’ers had got warmed up, though, for the next activity would see us getting quite cool, and rather wet. Now this is where Rob’s and my experience of the DAP greatly varies. I remember Rob putting his small blue tarp over the front of the Toyota in 2005 and walking through an inch or two of water.  I also remember well, Alan Rowe lamenting the drought and talking about us all having to simulate a water crossing. Simulation be darned – not for me and my fellow DAP’ers - my personal “underside” got wet indeed walking through that water, and so did all the participants, no matter their height. To quote Chris’s verbal report, the male DAP’ers found themselves in muddy cold water “up to the crown jewels”. As Ben and I had already thoughtfully changed into old shorts and shoes, Ben took on the challenge and waded in first. Chris, David and I held back to see how deep it got for him. Seeing Ben get his shorts wet, David simply stripped to his boxer shorts and quickly began wading in after Ben. Chris and I wound our shorts/trousers up a few more twists and waded in.

The instructors and passenger cheerfully watched us all stumbling through the water, taking photos of the muddy fun, amidst gleeful calls of “Don’t forget you have to walk one side and then go back and walk the other wheel track”. The DAP’ers all choose to ignore this sensible suggestion, and simply walked two people on one half of the tracks each. No, I am sorry to inform you, we did not attempt the walk again, but chose to trust each other instead!  We also told each other about the mud up to mid-shins, how hard it was to lift your feet and shoes out of the mud, and the depth of water on our respective rear ends.
After all playing in the mud for a while, we all had a semi-dry off and plenty of laughs. Each DAP’er then had some dryer fun checking out deeper and shallower sections with our vehicles. We also had some fun taking different approaches to the water crossing for comparison. It was amazing to me to learn how a tyre gets through mud much easier than a foot and shoe does! We took off for more serious driving again, all proudly wearing our real mud up to half and inch thick on our side steps. In retrospect, I think Ben had the best idea to strip back to his boxers, for a wet backside on the seat while driving for the remainder of the morning is not that much fun.

Back up to Love Hill, but this time we went on down the other side of the hill, and then up Bens Cracker to Bald Knob; the highest point of the property. As we approached Ben’s Cracker my instructor, the other Alan, fondly reflected on whether or not we had ever had a Toyota Land Cruiser up this section before ...”I think so”, he said.  I watched the vehicle in front go through a couple of sets of trees, and then I pushed the button to wind down the windows and folded in “His” side mirrors.  Shame I didn’t fold in “His” side step rails too in retrospect.    Suffice it to say, this track saw us putting into practice every lesson we had learnt for the weekend. It was quite a challenge with wheel placement and the height or width of our respective vehicles. Each vehicle and driver frequently stopped to walk it through in order to decide the best way to tackle the track ahead. Once again, thanks to the instructors, this was easily accomplished by all. We had already learnt all we needed to learn to take on this more difficult challenge.

Having handled this final challenge the DAP was now officially over. However, just as the Brooklyn DAP in 2005 finished with a optional challenging drive up the Rock ledge steps, there was also on optional slight deviation at The Springs to tackle if we wanted too. With Graeme in my instructor seat this time, and my vehicle at the front of the convoy, we slowly drove up to The Skids. I stopped the vehicle to have a look. Graeme smiled and said “You’ve seen it!” “Yep!” said I, speaking hopefully more confidently than I actually felt. I looked at the gully and rocks in front of me, and at the convoy of cars behind, and thought – “Great, I wonder if there is a way out that I haven’t spotted yet?” So, I walked, and climbed, over The Skids, considering options for wheel placement, where the underside of the Toyota might scrape, and where puddles of water beside the rock face may prove a challenge. As I slowly walked back down, I decided Dave O’Hara was right, “The car can do it”. After all, I’d seen Rob do a technically harder trek up the ledge at Brooklyn. So the car could do it, it was simply a matter of trusting my car, and trusting my lead instructor to talk me through it.

Ladies, if I have learnt nothing else on this experience, it is that I don’t have to know exactly what I am doing when I drive each challenge, I simply need to trust those outside my vehicle to tell me where the wheels are, and what to do next. I also need to trust “His” car and know its strengths and weaknesses. I have indeed learnt much more than that, but that is what will keep me sane if I ever have to drive “His” Toyota out of a spot that he drove us into, but can no longer drive us out of. I know I can do this, and more!

Yes, I drove the length of The Skids! I burned a bit of rubber, had to take 5 attempts to get up the first rock face, had to wait for numerous road building attempts underneath my wheels ... but I did it! ... and at the far end of the gully drew up to a halt, amidst cheers and claps from instructors, fellow participants, and my husband. Two other DAP’ers, deciding the clearance for their vehicle was not optimal, chose not to attempt this, remembering the golden rule “The decision is always yours!” The final DAP’er David decided to give it a go. He also burned a bit of rubber in the first section, and took a few attempts, but after that first section, David handled the rest of The Skids with ease.  

We were now really finished, but Graeme asked us for a final small deviation.  As I drove up to that hill, I recognised it immediately as the first days stall recovery site and laughed. It looked so easy now. What a journey we had had, and what simple but incredible lessons we had all learned in less than 30 hours.  We returned to our camping site for a debrief and decamp.

In closing, I’d like to finish with Rob’s comment to me on the way home in the car “Only problem is that I think I’ll have to tell Alan that Sylv’s driven up more difficult tracks than I have”. So ladies – get out there and try a DAP. It’s great for your confidence and means you can get the pair of you out of a sticky situation he might get you into one day. As far as Brooklyn tracks versus The Springs, well the Springs takes the 4WD and variety of track stakes too!  In short - The Springs wins!

Sylvia Edwards