What a run!!
Had a bit of a late start, some guys got held back cuz of rain and a bit of unexpected traffic.
Was able to hand out t-shirts and stuff, most guy collected and some put in orders for next time.
Convoy headed through the Demerara road in Wallerfied/Maturita side of arima. It was rainy but the weather cleared up through lunchtime and became quite sunny/hot.
Driving through the clouds in the mountains was pretty cool, some of the guys have never done that.
Foggy conditions!!
This was driving through all the rainclouds that were covering the Northern Range.
Soon we got to the Spring Bridge (can't remember the proper name for it) in Blanchisseuse and got all the vehicles down the trail, parked up and some of the guys headed down to the beach.
Exploring the bridge.
After driving into the Blanchi trail.
(I don't have pics of the beach, I'm sure the others will post some up later)
Exiting the trail was fun. Lots of slipping on that muddy corner, and the guys had a blast powering up and around that hill, especially that infamous huge rut where I had first gotten stuck in an EPIC way last year, waaayyy back when I first started offroading with Side-B (in a brand-new, 3-week old Navara!)
And surprise-surprise! A 4x2 Mazda B16 made it into the trail! Of course he needed help getting out, had to be towed out by another Mazda B2500 (zoom-zoom!) and we all had a blast watching those antics.
So... after Blanchi (which took a lil' longer than we expected cuz of all the towing-antics) we made a beeline all the way down to Las Cuevas trail. Some of the guys had never been on the trail before and were having loads of fun going through, getting stuck, getting pulled out and also gathering a heapload of hands-on experience all at the same time.
When everyone got onto the beach, there was just enough time left in the evening for lunch + a quick bathe in the sea (nice and calm waves!), then a brief talk about First Aid kits and then a very brief session on CPR training on the beach.
I'll post some of the CPR stuff on the forum later on, to reiterate what was talked about on the beach yesterday.
So, all-in-all, this was a great run and I'm sure the guys had a lot of fun. The new guys who never went offroading before had a blast, they kept asking when is the next run. Some of them had never been to Las Cuevas before, some had been there and had horror-stories of getting badly stuck, but all of us learned a few things on the trail with regards to recovery techniques.
The guys learned a lot about choosing the best path through a trail, as well as scouting/walking through the trail before actually driving through it. They received a lot of hands-on experience on how to place a vehicle onto a trail, use ruts to guide it and how to use power & momentum to get it through when tyres and suspension are limited to stock. As you can see from a couple pics posted above, they also learned how to use manpower when another vehicle isn't available for towing.
Thanks to James Mosely for coming out and helping guide the vehicles through the trail, with his presence and guiding the vehicles through the trail, things definitely went a bit smoother.
Thanks to Rutless Tiida for providing handouts to everyone for the First Aid kit, and thanks to BrianR20V for pretending to choke and have a fake heart attack
.
Thanks to everyone who came out for the run, I'm glad to report that there were NO ACCIDENTS / INCIDENTS, everyone made it home safely and before curfew, and we all have a great time!
Looking forward to everyone else's pics and videos!!
Side - B.
Keep on Truckin'!