Off-roading needs no rescuing

I’m a busy person. I like to do stuff…  Earlier in the day, I spent about two hours cleaning the car both inside and out, scrubbing, dusting and vacuuming making it look amazing!  And to celebrate, we decided to go Eight Mile Creek in South Australia, I said “Awesome!  let’s do it!  We packed dinner, and some water and away we went in our super spotless car!

Now to get to Eight Mile Creek, there’s a bit of navigating off road – no biggie, we’ve done it before.  We’re practically ‘pro’s’ – and well, Australia stuck out it’s pointer finger and went ‘tut, tut, tut!’

Australia is one of those enviroments that you dont know what you’re getting into until it’s way too late.  There’s heaps of incidents where people go out touring around the country only to be stranded in the outback and die from exposure from the harsh elements or some of the locals and then they pretty much have their way with you – i know i’ve said it heaps of times, but remember Wolf Creek?

And, dont forget Snowtown…. (but it’s best that if you’re in South Australia, you don’t talk about Snowtown)

Click here to see why.  

I guess what I’m trying to say is… if Australia as a continent or animals don’t kill you, the locals will!

Luckily, I planned for the Zombie Apocalypse – and had my trusty axe and murder shovel in the back of the car! (Because you never know when you’ll have to fight zombies and the bury them)  So, we did what any bogged person would do.. and have a think about what to do for the best outcome.

We knew that we were somewhere around where the pointer is placed… far enough from civilisation that no one could hear you scream yet,  close enough that walking back to civilisation would just suck.

Now, this mud is a mixture of incredibly soft silt, clay and salt.  It’s the the salt marshes I passed on the way to Adelaide.  It sticks to your feet and just piles on… and just doesn’t come off.

We knew we needed traction, so I went out on safari to find the best bushes that would give the wheels something to grip onto.

This is it.. Bushes like this.  They are so fragile, they nearly break off in your hand, so one swing, and you’ve chopped it up!  We grabbed heaps of these and placed them under the wheels.

Now, I am the 1998 South Jersey Drag racing champion and retired shortly after my win – I mean, when you’re on top, why set yourself up for failure!  (True Story)  And, it’s only fitting that I drive the car out of the mud.  It took a bit of rocking back and fourth and bit of pushing and revving, but we were able to move it!

I put that puppy in reverse for a good 15-20 meters!

This is how deep the hole is that we were stuck in.

Our next obstacle was a dune.  The aim was to drive fast enough to just keep the momentum going in the car so it just went over the hill, but getting the car up to a controllable speed was a bit of a problem.  It was still pretty slippery, so the car was spinning out without traction… and I nearly slid off the dune into bushes.  Then we would have been in trouble.

So, thanks to my incredibly awesome drag racing skills and reflexes like a cat, we managed to avoid the bushes and get up the sandy dune…..

while avoiding near-misses!

I guess there’s a few morals to this story.

First, don’t over-clean the car – it’s probably not worth it.

Second, this stuff gets hard as a rock, so it’s terribly hard to get out of the car so absolutely no amount of Ajax cleaner will help.

And finally, you just can’t get good wholesome entertainment like this anywhere in a big city!  I mean, look at this sunset! Oh yeah, and we probably need a four wheel drive!  Any sponsors out there wanna help?  Anyone?  Anyone?  🙂