Let me tell you a tail of a good quality adventure, one that really embodied murphy’s law. As everything that could go wrong went wrong. But also, everything that could go right went right.

 I’ll start at the beginning, myself and five of my mates Dave, Josh, Liam, Lewis and Nick decided to go on a camping trip for the uni holidays. Josh was the leader of our trip as he was the most experienced four wheel driver of our group, due to the fact he grew up four wheel driving with his family nonstop. However, the more accurate reason Josh was the leader of our trip was because he was the most organized out of all of us.

This was made clear from the very start of the adventure. As there were six of us we were taking two vehicles one of them being Josh’s Prado so we had agreed to meet at Josh’s house. He was ready waiting at his house with the car fully packed with all his 4WD recovery gear and camping gear at six am sharp.  The rest of us all but one rolled in about ten to fifteen minutes later. Half an hour went by and everyone other then Nick was at Josh’s house. The worst part was Nick’s car is the second vehicle we were going to take on the trip. Josh was beginning to become extremely annoyed and tried calling Nick for the twentieth time. Just as he hung up, we heard Nick’s voice come through on the UHF. Turns out Nick was at the shops not far from Josh’s house, but his car battery was flat, and he couldn’t get it started. Not only that but so was his phone battery and hence he couldn’t call to let us know. Lucky Nick had with him his handheld UHF so he had been flicking through all the channels trying to get a hold of us.

Don’t worry organized Josh was to the rescue, we all jumped in Josh’s car and headed to the shops. Josh pulled out his portable jump starter once we arrived, and proceeded to jump start Nick’s Toyota Rav four. The best part was that the jump starter could also charge his dead flat phone.

Finally, we were on the road and starting to begin our adventure, the six of us had all been friends since primary school so I can assure you when I say the banter was thick it most certainly was. For a good solid half an hour we where throwing jokes and insults back and forth between the two cars using Josh’s hardwired UHF and Nicks handheld UHF.

You would not believe it but after only an hour of driving we hear Nicks voice come over the UHF yet again. This time his battery was fine, but he had got a flat tyre, he luckily had managed to safely pull off the road. Josh’s car was ahead of Nick’s, so he made a safe U-turn and headed back to help. Once we get there, we find Nick has absolutely no useful recovery gear. His stock bottle jack that came with the vehicle will no longer raise his car due to his aftermarket lift, he had put on. Thank God Josh has an Offroad Jack that is a whopping forty-eight inches. Nick the silly man also did not have a spare tire as he’d used it in the past and never bothered to replace it. Yet again we were saved by the organized one of the group. Josh simply grabbed from his car a tyre repair kit.

Josh then proceeded to lecture nick on the benefits of a tyre repair kit. He stated how a tyre repair kit is an essential tool for any 4WDer. Josh went on to say Imagine if we weren’t in the city and in fact had a tyre puncture out in the bush with no reception and inadequate gear to change to a spare. So a tyre repair kit gives you piece of mind knowing you have a quality tyre repair kit safely tucked away in your rig. Plus, Josh said it so easy to use and store, you’d be crazy not to get one for your next adventure. Now that the tire was all fixed, we hit the road.

After two hours more of driving we finally reached our destination Double Island, before we hopped on the barge, we deflated the tyres in both vehicles using Josh’s trusty tyre deflator. We got off the barge and finally hit the sand. There’s was just one major issue, due to our so many time delays we didn’t arrive to Double Island at the time we planned. This means that it was in fact rather than low tide it was the peak of high tide. The problem with high tide is it forces you to drive high up on the beach so luckily Josh had his 4WD recovery gear. Due to the fact, the top portion of the beach is the softest sand and therefore the easiest to get bogged in. So, you can put money on it not even ten minutes into sand driving Nick had gotten himself bogged. The first piece of recovery gear Josh pulled was none other than a simple folding shovel. He handed it over to Nick and said good luck, the group of us burst into laughter. Nick tried for a while as we watched and laughed but it was clear he was going to need a little bit more than a folding shovel to get out of this hole.  So, Josh went back to his car for some more 4WD recovery gear the item he pulled out from his box of goodies was a Soft Shackle & Kinetic Rope Kit. Due to the high shock absorbing properties of a Soft Shackle & Kinetic Rope Kit slack can be left in the rope before the tow vehicle begins to pull. This is ideal for loose terrain such as sand or mud as it allows the tow vehicle to gain momentum before under load. The rope will stretch under load, transferring the kinetic energy from the recovering vehicle to the vehicle in need. So, it truly was the perfect piece of recovery gear for our situation as it pulled Nicks car out with ease.

Finally, at about 6pm we got to camp, once we setup and cracked open a few cold beers all the stress from the day just been had soon turned into memorable moments we all will have with us for life.

I hoped you’ve enjoyed my tail of a good quality adventure and if you’re going to take anything away from this story it should be that its always a good idea to a bring a complete set of recovery gear on all your adventures.