CUNNING HACKS

Welcome to the latest in our recent line ( Club Corner, 4 Work or Play) of service features. Cunning Hacks is contributor Richard Soult’s idea. But if you’ve got a good idea you’d like to share with your fellow four-wheelers we’d love to hear from you.

On a recent South Island road trip with my father, we were faced with the usual chilly bin problem. Water slopping around in the bottom of the bin, removing labels from packaging and drowning all the contents. His insistence of buying eggs only made matters worse and after several days on the road, the ritual of draining and cleaning the bin and its contents was wearing thin. Being an engineer, he was set on finding a solution and what a brilliant one he came up with. The next day we stopped in Cromwell and armed with the measurements, set off in search of plastic boxes to contain the ice and various food and drink items. Thanks, Sistema. We were very pleased to find six Sistema boxes that were not only a perfect fit horizontally but vertically as well. We filled the bottom two with ice. The two were just the right size for one bag of ice. This left us four boxes for meat, dairy, beers and various other items. As well as being a perfect fit, we had room in the middle for a couple of bottles of wine and milk. Back on the trail, we began to notice that as the ice was melting it was moving from side to side on the rough tracks, making a terrible noise. Once again my father put his mind to the problem and quickly found a possible solution. Sponges! Sponges? We stopped at the next service station and bought four large car washing sponges. There is just enough room to squeeze them in with a full load of ice and as the ice melts, the sponges absorb the water, cutting out all the noise. All in all, a very simple solution to a problem experienced by everyone who has been on a multi- day expedition.