Spring has sprung and on the east coast we are crossing our fingers for a wet season, filled with weekend escapes, hardcore winch recoveries and maybe having to change our socks a few times…

But if you are fairly new to hitting the more serious 4WD tracks it can be easy to dismiss precautionary measures like letting down your tyres – which is one of the simplest and most effective ways for you to gain additional grip offroad, by dropping your tyre pressures to about half highway pressures you’ll enhance your vehicles footprint by approximately 200% as you can imagine, by doubling your contact patch you enhance your 4WDs.

There are many ways to drop your pressures but if you are anything like us, you’ll be racing your mates to be the first ready on the tracks, for this reason, you should get your hands on a Kwiky Tyre Deflator, if you’ve never heard of this then you are doing it wrong – this clever device is extremely fast at dropping your tyre pressures down and can dump most of the air out of your tyres in a matter of minutes, you’ll be ready to roll whilst your mates are still on their first tyre!

Now before jumping in head first you need to consider a few things about what your plan of attack is for the slippery surface ahead, things like off camber berms or deep slimy ruts could force your 4WD in the wrong direction with very little recourse. So having a plan for addressing this potential lack of traction is very important, but in case your plan doesn’t work, you need a backup plan – in our books there isn’t a better backup plan than having a 12,000lb winch fitted to either the front or back of your 4WD.

By fitting a winch like the Domin8r X on your vehicle you easily enable your 4WD to pull itself free of tricky situations, by simply running out your winch cable to a solid tree as an anchor, and pressing the button you’ll be pulled free, saving your mates the trouble and you the price of a beer!

When looking at hitting the tracks you need to be prepared for nearly any eventuation and if you haven’t chucked a good quality first aid kit in the back of your 4WD you have already made a huge mistake! By bringing a first aid kit you more than likely will never need to use it but if something goes seriously wrong it could be life threatening.  This is where the Rescue Swag Adventurer comes in, not just a first aid kit, this bundle is designed to help you in survival situations as well and coupled with an easy to use offline smartphone app you can get prompts through lifesaving first aid procedures!

Lastly but not least is a full set of recovery gear, whilst you don’t need things like a winch extension strap or tree trunk protector if you don’t have a winch fitted to your 4WD, you should think about at least carrying an offroad Jack and a snatch kit to pull your 4WD free in case you don’t make it to the other side of the obstacle.

You can grab yourself a kit that is as simple as a Hercules Snatch Strap Kit or as comprehensive as the Hercules Complete Recovery Kit, but you should never head bush unprepared with a shovel and offroad jack ready to lift your 4WD free of trouble!

However in the sloppy mud you wont have many other options than jumping out of your 4WD and getting your hands dirty, this may also involve filling your boots with mud and ruining your socks, so bring a spare pair or two even if you are just hitting the tracks for a quick afternoon run, you can thank us later when you get home at 1am with toes that are pruning up because you’ve had wet feet for a dozen hours!

There aren’t many ways to get better at 4WDing than to take it easy, and take on the challenge, you will learn from others who have more experience and by watching their lines, follow their advice and have a ball hitting tracks you never thought was possible in your 4WD