Steep Thrills
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday August 15, 1996
Forty years after taking to the road, Peter Bowers, left, learnt how to drive. On a
mountain made greasy by rain, he picked up the skills critical for keeping himself - and others - alive on his Big 4WD Adventure.
Somewhere below the front wheels of the Nissan Patrol, hidden by the bonnet and all the more unsettling for that, my very first terrible descent awaits. Like Clancy of the Overflow, I am disposed to take a pull.
And this crazy man is telling me to leave everything to the motor! Hey, this is the silver-bronze chariot of my dreams. Leave nothing to the motor.
For Phil Poulter, who runs 4WD off-road training classes, there are three kinds of hills, gentle, steep and very steep. "This one," he said, trying to settle my splitting nerve-ends, "is nice and gentle." Maybe, but he didn't mention that overnight rain had made the course greasy and challenging, as the demonstration vehicle had just revealed by failing at the bottom of the first climb.
Phil finds an easier slope. Beginners, once frightened by losing control of a vehicle, take a long time to get over it, he says. Say that again.
Off-road driving is supposed to be fun and the Poulter golden rule is never take risks. Never take a difficult course when an easier one is available.
The first lesson was in stall recovery. "Now," said Phil, reminding me what I had managed to get right by applying heavy boot to brake, "your vehicle's stalled in low-range first gear.
"Good, I want you to put both feet firmly on the floor and leave them there. No accelerating, no braking, no declutching, OK?
"Now start the motor, in gear. No, don't move your feet. Your motor will get you safely down the hill by itself. You've got a big 4.2-litre under the bonnet. More than enough power to walk you down the hill. Start the motor, trust me."
That's a lot of trust when you're sitting in two tonnes of vehicle hanging over what looks like a short cliff AND this is your first excursion off the black carpet AND your $60,000 worth of 4WD is still showroom shiny.
Come November I've been driving for 41 years, starting with a '55 Ford Zephyr, a narrow-gutted squeeze box with a vicious clutch that chain-smoked plates. Three or four minor prangs, a $50 fine for speeding on the open road, say 1,000,000 boring but tolerably safe clicks.
The big problem with acquiring a four-wheeler at the age of 65 (as in my case) is your state of mind. After driving a conventional on-road vehicle for 40 years you're permanently strapped into a conventional view of what a vehicle can and cannot do.
You will never shake off that conviction while your 4WD experience is limited to driving on bitumen alone. You have to get off the black carpet and into the bush to discover - to experience first-hand - the amazing things a four-wheeler does with a little help from the driver.
The conventional mindset dictates that it is not possible for four wheels to negotiate a sharp and greasy incline virtually unassisted apart from being steered straight down the fall-line, to borrow a skiing term. Let your motor do the walking? Sounds like a suicidal version of the Yellow Pages ad.
Then again all 11 vehicles in front of me descended safely. I had paid $160 for this course and I was going to get my money's worth.
Here goes. Smoothly as though the Patrol had grown legs, the motor walks, yes walks me down the mountain, except for one jerky moment when I could not resist niggling the brake.
Okay, Phil, let's go. You know your stuff.
At the bottom, Phil's sidekick, Peter Flynn, who does everything first to show how easy it is (except on a rain-greased track scoured by washaways), is waiting to tell you how to get back up the hill: "Resist the temptation to charge at it. As a general rule you come down the hill in the lowest gear and go up in the highest gear practicable. Change up to low-range second, keep the revs at 1,500-1,600 all the way."
Just as with downhill skiing, from the bottom the slope always looks less steep than looking down from the top. In fact the uphill course about to be tackled was much steeper than the downhill one just negotiated. Climbing back to where I'd come from proved a piece of mudcake. A second go at the same down-up course went even more smoothly.
This is 4WD low-ranging for beginners in the high ranges of the Southern Highlands. In a hidden valley, about 35 km west of Mittagong, flows the curvaceous Wollondilly, seducing trout fishermen and skinny dippers alike.
The 4WD training course is on a 202-hectare one-time sheep property, discreetly distant from the main attraction, the River Island Nature Retreat (clothing optional). The four-wheel course is a little bumpy for skinny driving but if the guests of River Island are game enough so is Phil (as long as he does not have to get it off).
Phil Poulter and Ken O'Keefe bought the Moss Vale-based 4WD Off Road Driving Training Pty Ltd 12 months ago. Phil's attachment to 4WDs goes back to his years with Sydney Water, driving them to inspect sewer lines.
Meeting place for drivers undertaking the one-day introductory course, held on Saturday or Sunday, is the main street of Mittagong, conveniently placed between Sydney and Canberra.
Of the line-up of 11 vehicles from Sydney it was easy to see which 4WD was the most popular for city drivers; no fewer than six were Land Rover Discoverys. The Bush Tucker Man must be getting his message across.
Twelve vehicles are the limit for a one-day course, allowing individual attention for drivers at the start of every exercise. Apart from mine, the only other Nissan was a short-wheelbase Patrol, a diesel manual loaded with refinements - diff locks front and back, aftermarket shocks, $8,000 worth. Midnight blue. Snazzy. So much goat and go you could hear it snorting to get on the mountain.
If there is a macho image to four-wheel off-roading, it was nowhere to be seen in this group, whose ambience was overwhelmingly family: Pam and Keith, Philip and Leigh, Jim, with sons Tyler and Devin, Mark with sons Peter and Stephen, another Mark, with sons Adrian and Marcus, Chris and Janette, Michael and Sylvia, Nigel and his mate Michael (in separate vehicles).
Jamie and Maree, the youngest couple present, crewed the midnight blue snorter. My son, Michael, an experienced rally competitor, took photos.
Safety is a constant theme with Phil Poulter: never attempt to drive over difficult terrain without first walking over it, studying it; always drive straight up or down, never drive across the side of a hill; don't overload the roof-rack, it raises the centre of gravity and increases the risk of the vehicle tipping; as a rule, if you can walk up or down the hill you can drive up or down it; and remember green grass is slippery even when dry.
The fee for the course includes morning tea and a bush-size lunch: steak, sausages, fried onions, five boiled vegetables, apple crumble pie, cheesecake, custard, whipped cream. The first course after lunch would have shaken down any meal.
Logs half buried across a short, steep decline simulated a step-down rock shelf, a harder version of the stall recovery. A touch of brake was permitted to ease the front wheels over the logs but engine compression was to do the work. After a couple of nervous stalls, I got down with minimum braking.
Those planning a trip to the Territory were shown how to recover a bogged vehicle with winches or the ingenious snatch strap. For those, like me, anxious to get back on the course to test new-found techniques, the winching lesson was a drag.
The sun had gone from the valley and there was just time for "playtime" - negotiating a tight criss-cross track in a rocky river bed, covered by low scrub, with a six-metre high sand dune in the middle. Headlights were on by the time we reached Peter Flynn waiting to talk us over the dune: "Lots of aggression, watch the sharp left turn at the top and try to miss the tree." I stalled near the top, had to back off. "More aggression at the top," Peter urged. I made it, bucketing left at the top and missing the tree. Had I been asked to do that before lunch I would have got out and walked away.
The stars of the day: Jamie, Maree and the midnight blue mountain goat. Phil handed out certificates showing we had completed his off-road driving course along with the very useful Glovebox Guide to 4-Wheel Driving produced by State Forests of NSW and available for $8 plus $2 postage.
Peter awarded me a yellow Dunlop cap for starting timidly and finishing aggressively. A little courage is a useful optional extra for your first adventure off the black carpet.
INSERT
* The 4WD has become a staple of the Australian automotive diet. About 77,000 will be sold this year, or about 12 per cent of the total vehicle
market.
* Current 4WD wagons match people movers on price and seating capacity and promise the added dimension of off-road ability. Many buyers like the elevated view of the road and believe they enjoy superior safety.
* A full-size 4WD wagon weighs about 2,000 kg, equal to two Hyundai Excels or one and a half Holden Commodores, but it's nowhere near as agile or as quick to brake, partly because the tough off-roading tyres do not grip the bitumen so well.
* A 4WD's high centre of gravity increases the likelihood of rollover in an accident - and rollovers are substantially more likely to be fatal in a 4WD.
* Its weight gives it a clear advantage in a
collision with a lighter vehicle; the opposite is true when a 4WD collides with an immovable object.
* Occupants are likely to be better off in a side impact. The elevated seating lifts vulnerable pelvic parts out of harm's way.
* Off-road, newcomers may overestimate the vehicle's ability, especially in mud and sand. Others can be too timid to ever exploit those abilities.
INFOURMATION
4WD Off Road Driver Training Pty Ltd, Lot 5, Cherry Tree Close, Moss Vale, NSW 2577. 048 69 1235. Fax: 048 69 1236. The one-day off-road introductory course costs $160 for the driver, $65 for each passenger, $25 for a child (5-17).
© 1996 Sydney Morning Herald