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4x4 - Off Roadin

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Now I must confess that the nearest I’ve ever come to going off-road is when I accidentally mounted the kerb while leering at a gorgeous girl. Still, that’s probably about as much off roading as most 4x4 owners have done, too. They buy these enormous gas-guzzling beasties with bull bars to match and then use ’em to ferry kids back and forth to school. Tsch.

But if you’re the proud owner of an off-road machine, there’s a little place in The Forest of Dean that’ll show you how to charge up and down steep, muddy terrain with the same amount of conviction you show when waving your fists at some Mini driver. Oh, and you’ll also get the chance to show your mettle at the hands of an amphibious tank and various other bits of kit to boot. Welcome to the Whitecliff Off-Road Centre.

Pop into the ‘reception area’ and chances are you’ll be greeted by Richard Hannan, an affable Welsh chappie. He’s got bags of experience (including completion of the Mexican Baja Rally, y’know) and you get the feeling that what he doesn’t know about offroading isn’t worth sticking on a mudflap and posting to your mum. Of the four instructors and two partners listed by the firm, I also get to meet Geraldine Hooper, another experienced off-roader and the lass who’ll eventually help me scare livestock silly by careering around a field in a large inflatable skirt.

I’m here ostensibly for a 4x4/Multi-vehicle Day, but there’s a lot more to this centre than that: there’s an off-road course for beginners, another one for those more ambitious and a professional 4x4 driver training course for anyone looking for a qualification. In all of these courses the vehicles available are the Land Rover 90 or 110 V8, a choice of two V8 Range Rovers or the Range Rover Hybrid 3.9 EFI. There’s also a TD1 Land Rover Discovery. Many of them have been modified by Whitecliff to withstand the pressure of being driven about by the inexperienced off-roader 364 days a year – roll cages, special suspension and more aggressive tyres. You won’t get to drive all of these in one day, but it gives an idea of what you can expect.

For even madder motoring, the Multi- Vehicle Day gives you a choice of a 6.5-litre, sixwheel-drive Alvis Stalwart, a huge beast of a military machine with a straight eight-cylinder Rolls Royce engine; a four-wheel-drive Marmon (courtesy of the French army); the reverse steer auto-test just to confuse you and of course the hovercraft. 4x4 off-road driving will also be included in a full day’s action.

As soon as Richard’s explained all the vehicle options to me, we’re off to do our first bit of proper off-roading. We head up to a disused quarry that is staggeringly beautiful to behold. In fact, it’s so beautiful I’m tempted to rush home and get my paint-by-numbers set, but then I realise the quarry isn’t numbered, so I’d have no idea what to paint the greenery that’s cascading over the pleasantly rocky cliffs that tower over the off-road course.

The first thing I have a go at is a bright yellow Range Rover V8. Richard clambers in the driver’s side to show me the ropes (and very nice they are too) and he perches the car on the edge of a drop so steep you swear you can see the Devil waving at you. Grinning like the mad whale-baiter Quint from Jaws, Richard revs the Range Rover’s awesomely throbbing engine and lets go of the handbrake. We teeter over the edge, I suck my thumb and burst into tears…and the yellow peril trundles its way ever so slowly down the slope before finally coming to a halt at the bottom. “Off-roading’s not about charging around,” Richard tells me. “It’s about keeping control of the vehicle.” Only then he turns the thing round, jams down the accelerator pedal and it positively flies back up the hill again. I’m going to hate this day, I really am.

The next game’s a ‘get the photographer wet’ contest, where Richard and I take turns zooming through a massive puddle, throwing huge plumes of water into the air and ruining T3 snapper Rob Scott’s expensive kit in the process. It’s fast, it’s fun and the windows are open so I get wetter than Rob does. Hurrah. I get the hang of careering around in the Range Rover amazingly swiftly, though I still don’t like reversing right up to the cliff edge in order to take a run up to the water pool. I just know I’m going to inch that little bit too far and go sailing down the Steepest Hill in the World™ backwards. It sure gets the adrenalin pumping, though.

After much more mucking about up and down steep slopes, it’s time to take the Alvis Stalwart for a test drive. Now this, if anything, is an even more scary prospect than the Range Rover. I sit nervously in the central driver’s seat while Richard points out a fearsomely large number of switches, dials, levers and buttons and then proceeds to tell me how to change gear, swap between low and high gear ratios and how all the bits I need to make the thing work are all on the right side of me instead of the left. Yikes. Richard saves the best bit for last: “When you get to the top of the hill, the front wheels will leave the ground and you won’t be able to steer.” I’m paraphrasing here – I was too dumbstruck to write anything down. I start the Stalwart up, stall her, start her up again, stall her again… Then finally, after giving it an enormous amount of welly, the cumbersome eight-tonne machine lurches forward, ploughing into the ground below.

Crikey, the Stalwart’s big. The tight turns become almost impossible, while those big drops that seemed rather too close for comfort now appear miles away, with the Stalwart’s huge height giving you the impression that you’re actually hovering over the ground. This feeling disappears as soon as you get the thing moving. It bounces over the terrain like a khaki spacehopper, the enormous tyres not so much soaking up the bumps as squashing them into submission. I charge up the first hill, the ground disappears, the front wheels scrabble in the air and then the whole thing pivots on the second set and the machine comes crashing down with an enormous bump. Luckily I remember what Richard’s told me and get the front wheels in the right position for turning away from the crevice to the right of me, as it’s the rear wheels’ turn to try to find some grip in the Gloucestershire atmos. The thrill is intense. I love every minute of it.

It’s time for a much-needed break so we head back for lunch in the Marmon (actually I drive to the reception in the Marmon lorry and we have our sandwiches there).

Suitably stuffed, I head out for more off-roading adventures: this time it’s Geraldine who’s out to show me a good time. We’re off to a field where a hovercraft lies in wait.

Before I clamber in, there are a few things to attend to. First Geraldine fills it up with petrol, next I have to make sure I don’t have any loose clothing that could get caught in the enormous propeller behind me and third, I have to stick on a pair of goggles and have a safety cord attached to my wrist so if I’m unfortunate enough to fall out I won’t be immediately run over by a grown-up Flymo. Bizarrely, Geraldine reckons the best way to steer it is to stand up, legs on either side of a tunnel that stretches the length of the machine, and lean my body over while pointing the handlebars in the direction I want to go. “It’s a lot like driving a motorbike,” she says, and since I’ve never done that before either, I take the coward’s way out and sit down for my maiden voyage.

Goddamn, it’s difficult to control. As I shoot across assorted grasses and cowpats, I realise I’m not so much going round the white sticks that mark the course as ploughing through them while flying sideways. Moving the handlebars left or right seems to make little difference, as this thing has a life of its own.

off road Finally I relent to Geraldine’s calls and stand up. Leaning over the handlebars and leaning left to do a left turn, right to do a right, the ’craft suddenly becomes a lot easier to handle. I’m in control… and I’m having the time of my life. Jamming the throttle wide open, I scoot up and down the grass, turning on a sixpence round the sticks, and I’m greeted with the glorious sensation of having the wind in my hair and insects smashing into my teeth. Somewhere in the distance a cow moos. This is the best.

Then that’s it. My day, sadly, is over. Geraldine and Richard have a stag party coming next, so Rob and I head off in our respective cars. Suddenly driving on normal roads doesn’t seem that interesting anymore. My car doesn’t feel the same. Then I see a gorgeous girl and go off-road again…

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Editorial partners
Words Rob Mead
Pictures Rob Scott, Whitecliff Off Road
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