NEW CLUBSPORT FOCUS
The Wellington Jeep club has been going through a real purple patch since the Covid-19 Lockdown. “That’s right,“says keen member and regular NZ4WD mag contributor Andrew Gee. “We’ve never been so active.”
Everyone’s life and leisure time has so many options these days yet in and around the Capital our enforced lack of ability to travel, plus the uncertainty of any sort of sporting calendar dates has left us staying near home.
To that end our club has had some good trips since May; to the Skyline track off Odlins Road, the MacKenzie Trail at Foxton beach, Orongorongo Station and more recently, to various tracks around the Akatarawa forest. It’s been great to be an active club again, so first and foremost, thanks to everyone who has organised one of the runs.
Nothing compares to a day out with people you have been wheeling with for over 10 years, people you trust, and you know that under pressure, jobs are done automatically, making for rapid recoveries.
Advice is given freely but maybe not always taken! And newbies can come up to speed quickly when they are surrounded by so much experience. On the trip to the Akatarawas, for instance our merry band included 4x4 Trials and Club Truck Challenge competitors.
The trip was described by the organiser as a Medium trip or what my wife describes as a ‘Balls In’ trip, being the opposite of what I describe as a ‘Balls Out’ trip. After a briefing from our guide for the day, Dave
De Martin, we are away into the Puketiro Forest heading to Dick’s Yard via a few little loops off the main track.
At the first one Warren hit it in 2WD several times before he decided to use his front diff as well and then easily clear it. Just like at the old official Jeep Jamborees where he preferred to go in 2WD and doughnut around the place until he got told off for having too much fun.
The tracks down into and out of Dick’s Yard were rutted but Dave De M is in the Akas very often and gives very specific instructions over the radio. In a convoy it can be hard to place where he means but I was able to skirt around OK. Don however
got his Port to Starboard and parked across the track.
Onwards to Hydro Road and up and down the Zig Zag to Hydro Saddle where we didn’t stop under the pylon for the traditional view. Instead we took the 257 track which started off easy because the bush had been cut back but then rapidly became closed in. We came to an old culvert that had washed away and there was a bypass track.
Dave De M said the track ended a bit further down and made it optional in case we all had to winch to get through. Craig, Warren, Don and Dave went down thinking that it would be rude not to. The trees copped some punishment when they were forced to turn around, it wasn’t straight forward, being so tight they had to winch the back of Warren’s TJ around. Leaving 257 just required a little winch for a few people and finally we are heading off to the Orange hut for lunch.
The laughs continued after lunch when we did the Tank Track behind the hut, where another bunch ( or is it a grove?) of trees was waiting to rip off our flares. The middle of this little track had a wide section that had three alternative lines.
The one on the right looked good but Warren thought he had a plan and I should hit the centre one. It seemed that Warren’s plan was railing a slippery clay wall of death, thanks mate. Hit the rev limiter, hit the bank, roll over averted and a winch later and we are away again.