WRITERS’ ROVERS Pile on the Miles
Patrick takes to the road in his 2.8
WHEN ATTENDING the recent Land Rover Series One Club gathering in Amsterdam I was so delighted to see that most of the owners had driven their precious classic Land Rovers to the event. Despite the value of some of these beauties they do need to be actually driven to be enjoyed.
Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than when I get to drive my Defender. It might not be the most fuel-efficient thing around, but when I plant the accelerator the exhaust burbles and barks like a rabid dog. This raises the hairs on the neck of anyone standing within earshot of the Green Mamba. As such it has been a busy old month as I have been piling on the miles in my Defender. In fact, I have done about 1000 miles in it during the last week or two.
It all began with an early morning trek down to South Coast Campers in Poole, a 350-mile round trip from my humble abode. Ali and Dennis Manning specialise in VW camper conversions and they recently started importing the Ququq D Box, which basically consists of a quality box and a bed which very quickly slots into the back of a 110. It literally took Dennis less than five minutes to fit it into my Defender. Best of all there was no drilling or modifications necessary, just good old ratchet straps. The sturdy box contains a two-plate cooker, water containers, lots of storage space for food plus other kitchen-related bits. It’s German made and simple to secure.
As for the double bed it has a 10 cm thick cold foam mattress that is separate from the box so you don’t have to take both along. What impressed me the most about the whole system was the ease and speed of installation plus the quality of the workmanship. The bed folds away on top of the box so when not in use I can still use the bench in the second row. I can’t wait to take my son Isaac camping in it and we will have a full product review on our Ququq D box in a future issue.
The day after the drive to Poole I drove over to the Overland Show in StratfordUpon-avon. Yes it was cold, muddy and rainy, but it was really good to see so many old and familiar faces. One of my favourite parts of the show were the various talks by people who have really done some pretty inspirational expeditions. My friend James Davis, who is a very experienced security consultant, gave a very good talk on overland security. Even though I have done many overland trips I definitely learnt something from his talk and will be using his advice on future expeditions.
The evenings at the show are the best as everyone is trying to impress with their exotic cooking skills. I just did some good old British lamb chops and pork sausages on the Weber gas BBQ. The Overland Adventure show was another 150-mile round trip and I looked forward to the next one at the end of summer.
Finally on the Monday, which was also Land Rover Day (April 30), I drove my Defender 110 down to Classic Works in Coventry, where the official Land Rover
70th birthday party was taking place. As was the case with most Land Rover nerds on the day who had a fear of missing out, I left home with about three hours in the bag to cover 70 miles to get there. This was a party that I did not want to miss. I found it rather amusing that all the Land Rover scribes arrived around the same time, which was about an hour and a half before the party kick-off time! There were many Land Rover legends (see page 58) in attendance and I hung around the car park at the end of the event. This was spent getting autographs in the copy of my orange ICON book or just chatting to other Land Rover fans or legends. I was the last to leave and as the car park was empty, I did stop my Defender under the Classic Works sign for a picture.
As if that was not enough driving, two days later I did another 350-mile round trip to go and interview Charlie Fawcett from Twisted, but before I get ahead of myself, the interview will be published in a future issue. There was not one moment during all of the above driving that I did not enjoy. Yes I was not going fast, I like to sit at about 100 km\h, but it was the sheer, smooth driving pleasure of my Defender that made me one of the happiest people alive. The Germans might not be very good at cricket or darts, but they sure know how to build a smooth, solid and reliable engine.