We all work hard on a daily basis, and in the current climate we grow up working super long days
and long weeks, so when it becomes time to unravel, it can leave you looking for something
different to do each weekend, or each break depending on what sort of work roster you are on. But
there is just something about knowing your mates have same day off and you can go and explore
some beautiful countryside and see what you can find. You’ve counted down the hours all day on
your last and finally made it to the end of the grind, and are more than ready for a couple of steady
drinks after work and put your heads together to work out what the following day will bring for a
couple of mates ready to chill out, in a situation like this, is there really anything that could go
wrong?
Spending the weekend going on an adventure can be soul soothing ever after the longest working
weeks, helping you to reach the escape from normality. Usually done with mates it’s as simple as
jumping in the car and heading out somewhere to simply get lost. You don’t even need to have the
camping setup or the big 4×4 with muddies and 2” lift to find yourself a little bit of fun. Back in the
day, rocking a budget run around in the form of a 1984 Subaru L Series, I grabbed a couple of mates
and we left for a day trip through the terrain along the water’s edge in a somewhat rainy South
Australia. Not only did we have an older vehicle, but we also went totally unprepared and just in the
one car.
After finding a nice helping of mud and slush it was the perfect time to test out the Subaru and see
how the 20+ year old machine could handle a bit of traction loss and unfamiliar terrain after being
parked in a barn for many years. What a ride that came from here on out, it did an amazing job
pulling us out of every sticky little situation we found and not even bothering the temperature gauge
one bit, at least I think it was working. We spent hours climbing up small embankments and trudging
through thick puddles of mud without a care in the world, finding that release from reality we were
craving when we decided to head out there. Now, we managed to get in a little deep in one pile of
muck which resulted in a couple of us having to pile out and give some two-handed assistance to the
tailgate to create a little extra juice behind the boot to get us out, which we did. When the lads
jumped back in it was apparent that we should have chosen to wear something other than Ugg
boots for a mud chasing adventure, lesson learned.
Throughout the next couple of hours, we get stuck a couple of times but kept managing to find a
way out by ourselves without too much of an issue. Now enter sloppy seaweed.. we come across a
patch of seaweed about as big as your standard oval, and the part which we drove in on was great,
nice and hard and dry. So, without thinking too much of it we moved about 100m further in before
the entire car sunk down to the footwells! Yeah, we were 100% stuck this time and no amount of
push on the tailgate was going to fix this one. It was time to call in some help as we all knew there
was nothing we could do with no hardware. So, we got on the phone and did some searching.
Within half hour one of the local legends rocked up and stayed super clear of where we were stuck
but entering from the opposite side to see how close he could get to use to provide some sort of
recovery. Now this bloke was mucking around, he had his D40 Navara kitted out with everything you
can imagine would be needed in any kind of off road recovery. But he wasn’t mucking around, he didn’t want
to show off all the little bits of gear, he went straight for the 9m 22,000kg rated snatch strap and
coupled it to the hardware on the back of his rig and carefully backed up enough for us to hook it on
our end. With one warning rev, he was off and out came the Subaru with ease and just about
airborne at the same time, no mucking about here, what a snatch! The point was proven to us on
that day that we should definitely be more prepared as we might not always have someone ready to
drop off and come recover us from in the middle of nowhere.

We decided it was enough adventure for the one day and headed back into town where the poor
little Subie all covered in mud and seaweed didn’t even make it to the carwash, instead overheating
right in front of the pub, prime time for beers!
The main takeaways from this are that snatch straps and recovery gear are absolutely invaluable
even in mild terrain as you never know what you’ll discover, always make sure your temperature
gauge is working, Ugg boots don’t belong in mud, and a bit of 4wd fun doesn’t have to cost an arm
and a leg or take up the whole weekend, but it wouldn’t hurt!
If you’re starting out, head on a 4WD Supacentre and grab yourself some basic recovery gear, some boots
you can get dirty, and a collapsible water container for topping up your rigs radiator if you wish. The
market has so much to offer these days and it allows anyone the opportunity to head out and enjoy
the fun without the worry of getting stuck and not getting out. Add a winch, some tracks or
even just some chunkier tyres, to get you gliding over some harsh terrain.