KNOW BEFORE YOU GO Expedition travel is all about venturing into the unknown. But you definitely don’t want Words and pictures: Noel and Marilu Peries
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hen you’re preparing for overland expedition travel, choosing the right vehicle is only half the job. Wherever you’re going, if you want your truck to get you there safely you need to know how to use it. Now, we are definitely not 4x4 experts. Back in 2009, I remember buying Maggie, our 1991 Land Rover Defender, and spending a good half a day running through a huge
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checklist with the previous owners. High on my list was practicing offroading, using the differential lock and operating low-range gears. At the time, all of this was a blur. And if I am honest, I was not completely confident on what to do while driving Maggie off-road. When I did my first overland journey from London to South Africa in 2010, I learnt how to drive Maggie off-road by experimenting. I came to understand how to deal with recovery situations the hard way –
by making mistakes and learning from them. These days, many thousands of miles later, we know much more than we did then. If I could do it all over again, however, I would certainly have enrolled in a 4x4 training course that would have given me the skills to make it there and back safely. Contrary to popular belief, these training courses don’t take a onesize-fits-all approach. There are of course certain basic skills that apply
to every off-road situation – reading the ground, knowing how to judge the correct gear to be in, reading the ground, when to use diff lock, reading the ground… you get the idea. But a good instructor will be able to adapt the training they offer to suit the kind of off-roading you intend to do – the best classroom experiences are very much a twoway street. Here, we’ve considered the value of off-road training for overlander – as well as looking at some of
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