Jimbo4x4
Well-Known Member
...with an eventful episode from Strata Florida 
read on...
I went Green Laning at the weekend with the family, my dad's recently got back into off roading and while he's not yet ready to take his 51 plate Colorado into the rough he has gone and bought some Cooper STT's and a Maggiolina rtt to throw on his old G plate Isuzu Trooper which he's happy to run into the ground first. My brother (Mike) provided assistance with his memorymap satnav setup in his Isuzu TF DCab.
The two Isuzu's started off near Denbigh and did a few northern lanes before meeting up with me in Tywyn at Laura's parents place where we had stayed friday night. In the late afternoon we set off for Happy Valley and a couple of other lanes before setting up camp by a lake off another lane. We stretched a tarp' between mine and Mike's roofracks and figured we'd be dry enough for our bbq when the expected rains set in... how wrong we were - because when the rain hit so did the full fury of the wind
We got thoroughly soaked but salvaged a good laugh, some delicious lamb chops and a half decent nights kip.
The next morning brought a slight let-up in the weather and pancakes for breakfast, then we set off and recce'd a couple of other lanes which may be worth a return visit one day, before heading down to Strata Florida and Soar-y-Mynydd. Strata was looking about average considering the amount of rain we'd had but we were having a good time of it when we reached the bridge on the forestry track for a brew-up. There was a group of 3 defenders and 1 disco just finishing their cuppa's already parked there. I quietly pointed out to Mike that two of the trucks were wearing Insa Turbo's; we'd seen fresh tracks of the same tread pattern heading off piste a little further up the lane, not that that was conclusive evidence it was these guys who were guilty. We had a natter and said we'd leave it 20mins for them to get ahead before we set off behind them. As they were driving off I said to Mike, "maybe we should've gone first, if one of them breaks down and blocks the track we could be waiting for hours!"
Sure enough, a couple' hundred yards on we reached the waterfall (or rather, a trickle that day), and there was the group of LR's stuck behind the lead Defender with its bonnet up
He had driven down the waterfall then (flexing his muscles) tried to reverse back up it and fried his clutch, so they were waiting for it to cool down before they carried on. The other LR's were parked up on the waterfall by-pass route and as they went to move them out of the way so we could pass the disco driver proclaimed that his wouldn't start 
At this point I was shaking my head, how can anyone want anything so unreliable? "No problem" I said, "rather than push 3 trucks out of the way (see what I did there? 
), if we can move that Defender to one side we'll just go through the waterfall". Now it was their turn to shake their heads in disbelief, "you're going to drive down that? In them?", uh, yeah, it is the posted right of way after all! "Right you are!" the leader replies after a short silence, and we push his heap to one side and get to it.
Of course, the 3 Japanese warhorses made light work of the waterfall with Mike's HD rear bumper taking the place of the back wheels towards the bottom and we marched on, leaving the LR owners staring after us, still shaking their heads. As it was, my dad took the wrong line at first, getting close to a rock on his near side, so, at the steepest point he reversed back up a couple of feet to correct himself. I'm sure he didn't really need to, I think he just wanted to rub it in that his near standard Trooper was more capable in this scenario than the highly modded D90 that had blown its clutch doing the same thing
The LR's obviously got themselves all mobilised shortly after we passed them as, while doing a little photoshoot downriver, we see them catching us up... we also observe two of them head off piste for a play in the river. Now I don't know if many of you have driven Strata recently, but we noticed that everywhere there was some sort of debate as to which track to take the right of way had been clearly signposted. Hats off to whoever it was in Powys council who thought of doing this, because now there is absolutely no excuse for those who do go off the main right of way. Mike got plenty of photos of the lead LR and another defender splashing about in the river, and our unspoken question we had asked further north was subsequently answered.
What do you guys reckon we do with these photos? I haven't looked yet to see if the numberplates are visible but if they are they will be powerful weapons. I hear Powys Police are keen on crushing offending vehicles...
Will try to get some of the other pics up soon, but I'm not online as much as I used to be, plus most of them are on my dads laptop. Will see what I can do.
TTFN
Jim.
read on...I went Green Laning at the weekend with the family, my dad's recently got back into off roading and while he's not yet ready to take his 51 plate Colorado into the rough he has gone and bought some Cooper STT's and a Maggiolina rtt to throw on his old G plate Isuzu Trooper which he's happy to run into the ground first. My brother (Mike) provided assistance with his memorymap satnav setup in his Isuzu TF DCab.
The two Isuzu's started off near Denbigh and did a few northern lanes before meeting up with me in Tywyn at Laura's parents place where we had stayed friday night. In the late afternoon we set off for Happy Valley and a couple of other lanes before setting up camp by a lake off another lane. We stretched a tarp' between mine and Mike's roofracks and figured we'd be dry enough for our bbq when the expected rains set in... how wrong we were - because when the rain hit so did the full fury of the wind
We got thoroughly soaked but salvaged a good laugh, some delicious lamb chops and a half decent nights kip.The next morning brought a slight let-up in the weather and pancakes for breakfast, then we set off and recce'd a couple of other lanes which may be worth a return visit one day, before heading down to Strata Florida and Soar-y-Mynydd. Strata was looking about average considering the amount of rain we'd had but we were having a good time of it when we reached the bridge on the forestry track for a brew-up. There was a group of 3 defenders and 1 disco just finishing their cuppa's already parked there. I quietly pointed out to Mike that two of the trucks were wearing Insa Turbo's; we'd seen fresh tracks of the same tread pattern heading off piste a little further up the lane, not that that was conclusive evidence it was these guys who were guilty. We had a natter and said we'd leave it 20mins for them to get ahead before we set off behind them. As they were driving off I said to Mike, "maybe we should've gone first, if one of them breaks down and blocks the track we could be waiting for hours!"
Sure enough, a couple' hundred yards on we reached the waterfall (or rather, a trickle that day), and there was the group of LR's stuck behind the lead Defender with its bonnet up
He had driven down the waterfall then (flexing his muscles) tried to reverse back up it and fried his clutch, so they were waiting for it to cool down before they carried on. The other LR's were parked up on the waterfall by-pass route and as they went to move them out of the way so we could pass the disco driver proclaimed that his wouldn't start At this point I was shaking my head, how can anyone want anything so unreliable? "No problem" I said, "rather than push 3 trucks out of the way (see what I did there? ), if we can move that Defender to one side we'll just go through the waterfall". Now it was their turn to shake their heads in disbelief, "you're going to drive down that? In them?", uh, yeah, it is the posted right of way after all! "Right you are!" the leader replies after a short silence, and we push his heap to one side and get to it.Of course, the 3 Japanese warhorses made light work of the waterfall with Mike's HD rear bumper taking the place of the back wheels towards the bottom and we marched on, leaving the LR owners staring after us, still shaking their heads. As it was, my dad took the wrong line at first, getting close to a rock on his near side, so, at the steepest point he reversed back up a couple of feet to correct himself. I'm sure he didn't really need to, I think he just wanted to rub it in that his near standard Trooper was more capable in this scenario than the highly modded D90 that had blown its clutch doing the same thing
The LR's obviously got themselves all mobilised shortly after we passed them as, while doing a little photoshoot downriver, we see them catching us up... we also observe two of them head off piste for a play in the river. Now I don't know if many of you have driven Strata recently, but we noticed that everywhere there was some sort of debate as to which track to take the right of way had been clearly signposted. Hats off to whoever it was in Powys council who thought of doing this, because now there is absolutely no excuse for those who do go off the main right of way. Mike got plenty of photos of the lead LR and another defender splashing about in the river, and our unspoken question we had asked further north was subsequently answered.
What do you guys reckon we do with these photos? I haven't looked yet to see if the numberplates are visible but if they are they will be powerful weapons. I hear Powys Police are keen on crushing offending vehicles...
Will try to get some of the other pics up soon, but I'm not online as much as I used to be, plus most of them are on my dads laptop. Will see what I can do.
TTFN
Jim.
