I thought i’d share this little episode of the time I got the Land Rover stuck in the jungle when all by myself. Nothing focusses the mind more than a survival situation and nothing teaches you more about driving off road than getting stuck up to your axles in mud.
I was doing shuttle runs with a team over a stretch of 18km of muddy jungle track. We were aiming for a camp site on our route towards our project site for 6 weeks. I went down first with another guy and 6 weeks worth of food in the back. I dropped everything off, including him, and headed back to get the first half of the group. 4km back, my front right wheel dropped into an unseen hole in an otherwise calm muddy rut. The axles dropped onto the mud and it was going nowhere.
Fight or flight
As the sun started to set and my radio was out of reception, I was faced with a few decisions:
- Bed down where I was and wait out the night and try in the morning
- Walk back 4km to get to the guy I dropped off and use the radio
- Dig myself out as quick as possible
With the schedule of the expedition to keep to, and 14 people waiting to get to the campsite, I decided to go for it. The vehicle wasn’t equipped with a winch, so I had to do it the old fashioned way…
Does no winch make you unprepared?
In my time in Belize I had to do this quite a few times and you get very well practised at it. Not having a winch causes some trepidation before entering a dubious patch of terrain; but this is no bad thing. Having a winch can create a blase approach to conquering obstacles that could end up with you being more stuck or damaged than you thought.
With having no winch in all the expeditions I had been on, there came a point where I gained a level of fearlessness and found myself quite adept at extricating a stricken vehicle. This became a hugely beneficial attitude for me and made me achieve safety and reliability in what I did. For this reason I have not included a winch in my list of basic expedition equipment or essential modifications.
I found though, that this ‘edge’ of fearlessness disappears quite quickly through lack of practice – and what you would once breeze through, would make you stop and question your own (and the vehicle’s) ability.
There is no better practice for expeditions than going on expedition, and there is no better thing to have on expedition than practice. Confused? Oh the paradox.
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