4WD Practice

As I was leaving Kalbarri I had a flashback to the previous evening. I was about 120km from Geraldton and travelling at about 80kph with the caravan when I saw what looked like a video camera on a tripod by the side of the road. It was aimed at car window height and had an IR light next to it. I just saw this all out of the corner of my eye as I was driving, but I recognise most tech quickly. In the UK I know that the cops use these cameras to already have your licence and registration details when you get stopped further down the road and so it was no surprise when shortly  a cop appeared on the road and directed me into a parking area by the side of the road.

It was something amazing, perhaps 20 cops standing in a line on either side of the road all under floodlights. As soon as I stopped cops start going over the car and caravan and a few crowded around the drivers window of the car. One asks me if I have any illegal weapons or drugs in the car, I decide now is not the time to be smart and look indignant as I say no.

Then he asks me if I am doing anything illegal or if I have ever been in trouble with the police. I say other than minor traffic code violations I am a law abiding citizen.

Finally after they check everything they find one of my taillights out on the caravan. Just as I am trying to come up with some excuse to lessen the offence the officer in charge tells me that seeing as all the other lights work and the brake lights are the only ones you cannot check by yourself he will let me continue to Kalbarri tonight but I must try and fix the light in Geralton on the way.

As it was late and dark I kept going untill I made Kalbarri.

 

So I suddenly realise I need to stop and fix the brake light on the caravan, I should have waited for the next rest stop, but It suddenly seemed important that I fix the issue before I got stopped again. So I pulled over onto the soft shoulder at the edge of the road. Boy was it soft. I ended up bottomed out with the clutch slipping rather than turning the wheels... Being a 4WD professional I am adept at getting myself into situations like this and also at getting out of them. I was on plan B having tested plan A and discovered that all the digging and the sticks from plan A were not a completely pointless excercise and had I been trying to bury my car 6 foot further down the road it could have been called a sucessful operation. At about this point I hear my first car and look up to see a Jeep Cherokee coming down the road. I run onto the road and wave to the driver in the classic, hands over the head, I need help wave. He never even slowed down, looked me in the eyes and shot past. This kind of behaviour irritates me, he could at least have stopped to make sure that I had not been bitten by a snake or something. Generally in the outback people are amazingly helpfull and considerate of others, you have to be when you may be the only help for the next 100km. Afer a little thinking I decided that plan A only failed because the sand was unable to support the weight of the car, therefore reducing the weight would probably tip things in my favour, or easier to reduce the ground pressure by increasing the tires contact patch. Using some auto tyre deflating gizmos that were given to me by a dear friend many years ago I dropped all the tyres down to 16PSI and on the next attempt drove back onto the road. Now I was thankful that I had the cheap K-Mart tyre compressor which may have taken nearly 10mins to take each tyre back to 35psi, but was so much better than trying to drive the next 100km on 16psi.