Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i NZ4WD

Land Rover and luxury British stablemate Jaguar now have more than 160 vehicles deployed globally to support emergency response organisations during the COVID-19 Coronavirus crisis. All up 57 vehicles (including 27 new Defenders from the press fleet!) have been pressed into service with the British Red Cross to deliver medicine and food to vulnerable people including the elderly across the UK A further65 vehicles are supporting Red Cross Societies in Australia, Spain, South Africa and France with more vehicles expected to be deployed in the UK and other countries very soon; thanks in part to the vehicles now available due to the postponement of launch events. Protective equipment including wraparound safety glasses is also being donated to the NHS. "Our partnership with the Red Cross goes back 65 years and…

One of the many great things about living in Christchurch is its proximity to some truly great overlanding country. We have Banks Peninsula, Akaroa on our doorstep to the east, and, within an hour or so, you can be up in the hills exploring some of our unique braided rivers including the Waimakariri and Rakaia, to name just a couple, to the west. We also have fantastic lakes including Lake Coleridge, Lake Heron and Lake Clearwater. And we can be down at Tekapo within three and a half hours. In short the possibilities are endless, which was one of the reasons why we decided to make Christchurch our base on leaving Auckland. A couple of weeks ago (Richard wrote this pre-lockdown. Ed) with temperatures in the high 20s, we decided…

And so it began, High County Journey’s main man and tour leader John Mulholland in his Toyota Prado leading seven assorted 4x4s, including a Mercedes-Benz, VW Amarok, Nissan Navara, Toyota Fortuner, two Toyota Hiluxes (one a Cross Country Rental) and our Mazda BT-50, out of Blenheim early one February morning. John took a couple of passengers in his truck (you don’t have to bring your own) which made up a touring party of 18 people (eight ladies and 10 blokes). The South Island High Country Grand Slam is one of John’s premier multi-day tag-along 4x4 tours, a seven-day/eight-night largely off-road Odyssey which starts in Blenheim at the top of the South Island and finishes at Cardrona in the heart of Central Otago. FIRST UP, BEST DRESSED! Day 1 took us…

Getting stuck may now be something you aim to do, just so you can put your Ironman 4x4 recovery gear to good use. Ironman 4x4 products have been developed in the harshest proving ground in the world – Australia – and have been the first choice for customers for over 50 years. Company stores across New Zealand offer every possible item of Recovery gear going – from winches to shovels and snatch straps and everything in-between. Ironman 4x4 Monster winches Ironman 4x4 has totally redesigned and upgraded its range of monster winches, including the use of stronger motors, heavy duty casings, synthetic ropes, and competition-style solenoids. Engine Breather The greatest new feature of the range of winches is the fully sealed motor with a breather that allows the motor to…

The second day of exploring from Mistletoe Bay saw us take the road around Kenepuru Sound, starting with a repeat of the previous day’s run up the eastern side of the Sound to Kenepuru Head. A clear sunny morning made for a highly scenic trip, however it was also more stressful than the day before’s run, since the road seemed to be full of oncoming vehicles towing long boat trailers and travelling too fast. To make matters worse, the drivers did not seem to understand that a long trailer does not follow the car around a corner, and twice I was forced to swerve half off the road to avoid a trailer well over my side. The third time the driver was also cutting the corner and the trailer just…

I’m writing this article on the 26th March in a house in Marahau, Abel Tasman, in which we will be confined for at least four weeks. I wanted to write something to document our experience of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, the rapidity with which it has come upon us and the implication that it may have on our pastime and our lives in the future. Hard to believe It seems hard to believe that a few short months ago, we were travelling through Europe logging routes for 4x4Explorer. We spent time in London, Paris and Barcelona whilst travelling through the UK, France, Italy and Spain. Something quite unimaginable now... Even returning to New Zealand in late November, we had no idea of what was about to happen. First whispers Sometime…

The ninth annual run of the ‘Land Rover Series 1 Enthusiasts, New Zealand’ group took place at the end of February 2020 in Clevedon, South Auckland. We are not a club – just a bunch of total strangers who have nothing else in common other than a passion to keep Land Rover Series 1s on the road. The trips started back in 2011 when Leon Zwetsloot from Upper Hutt sent out an email to everyone that was on the mailing list for the historic ‘Oxford to Cambridge’ run several years earlier, to see if anyone would be interested in another meeting. This first trip was covered in the April 2011 edition of the NZ4WD Magazine. The inaugural trip had seven pre-1958 Series 1s gather in Taumarunui to work our way…

Considering the number or Kiwis who tow things, you’d think that there would be a specific ‘tow’ box to tick on your driver’s licence. But no, though when you go through the ropes of obtaining the various grades you need to drive a heavy truck you have to prove you know how to handle a trailer (going forward as well as reversing) there is absolutely no requirement for any such practical display if you are applying for your private car licence. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of both factory and aftermarket-fitted tow bars in the world. And it is seen as every red-blooded Kiwi’s birthright to own a small trailer so that he or she can regularly take loads of rubbish to…

As if we needed reminding after a long, dusty drive along a winding metal road drive to the point you wondered where you were, we arrived at the campsite to a sign at the gate welcoming us to paradise and stating there was no cellphone coverage, no traffic lights and certainly no cafés, just friendly critters and ‘grumpy dinosaurs’ as John Sturmfels, who met everyone as they arrived, referred to himself. The Whangarei 4WD Club uses the 1600 hectare (4000 acre) property the anniversary event was run at regularly and normally camps beside the Mangakahia River. This year though the site was being used by the annual Dimension electronic music and arts festival, so our camp was further up the road beside the Waiokumurau Stream. It still had a couple…

This article was written from back home in New Zealand, while participating in the coronavirus lockdown. We arrived home five weeks before the lockdown commenced, at a time when there was still only limited visibility of what was about to grip the world. And equally before it would fully dawn on me just how fortunately timed our 10-month long Russia and Central Asia to England expedition really was. We did not cut our trip short – there was no need as we had successfully reached our planned end point of England by early February. However, this is not to say there weren’t other kinds of serious difficulties to overcome along the way, particularly nearer the end of our journey, which you can read about in upcoming editions. But I shudder…

Like the rest of New Zealand society, we find ourselves in the strangest of times. This virus thing, and the lockdown, affect every one of us and its durability should not be under-rated. So we feel doubly blessed to have been able to be part of Hayden Paddon’s new hill climb on Ben Nevis just a week or so before the apocalypse. Both (my son) Owen and I went south, Owen having further tweaked the Jimco V6, while the Giti Chev had finally had its wash and gearbox work done. The weather was pretty patchy, in fact the hill climb’s approach bridge got washed out a week or so before the event. Credit for the repairs go to Hayden’s devoted followers. But neither off-roaders nor rally drivers cry about a…

Terrain Tamer have ramped up their online presence in an effort to meet the dramatic uplift in demand from online shoppers in the wake of recent national quarantine and lockdown laws. As well as having introduced an innovative parts catalogue for their trade customers, the 4WD parts brand also launched their retail eStore in late 2019, giving customers an online platform from which to easily search and purchase from their extensive catalogue of over 40,000 different parts. Orders are fulfilled by whichever of Terrain Tamer’s 30 locations around Australia is closest to the customer, who can also nominate to either collect the order or have it delivered to them. In many states, the number of delivery drivers has doubled to meet the demand from both professional and home mechanics, now…

Formerly known as the Challenger, which had a very lacklustre sales history, in part because it was fighting for a piece of the seven-seat scene with only five seats, Mitsubishi’s new Pajero Sport is enjoying new-found popularity on the back of the runaway sales success of the vehicle on which it is based, the turbo-diesel, double cab, Triton Ute. By the time the third-generation-plus-facelift Pajero Sport arrived toward the end of 2019, two more seats had been found and the SUV had acquired a truckload (an apt description) of seriously high tech, very much in keeping with Mitsubishi’s other 2020 models. ALL THE BELLS & WHISTLES The technology relates primarily to safety tech, which is why you get low speed Forward Collision Mitigation, (visual and audible alarm for an object…

During a brief conversation with Ross, this magazine’s editor, the question of how I got involved with four-wheeling was raised. Good question! It goes back a fair way now and really started back in about 1970 when my younger brother and I bought a 1957 long wheelbase Land Rover with the aim of getting to more surf beaches. We knew nothing about that machine, except that it was 4WD and could seat about ten people. Although with that sort of load and an original Series One engine, we soon found that even slight hills were a challenge! A trip to Waihi Beach seemed a good idea and when we arrived, it was out onto the sand … as you could then. However, our exit was less dignified as we got…

May winner – Jay Sanders “Thought I would share a pic from a recent CR4WD Club trip to the West Coast,” began a (pre-lockdown) email from keen Christchurch contributor Jay Sanders. “Beautiful weather, great friends, spectacular country side and very sticky mud!” “Fantastic!” we replied. “But we need more than two pics for a Your4s submission.” “No problem,” came the almost immediate reply. “How about this one taken on another recent trip up the Avoca River, pushing through the track that got washed out last year!” “Perfect,” was the only word we could think of in reply!”…

As I sit down to write this, we are into a four-week shutdown throughout the country to minimise the spread and effects of the Coronavirus that is spreading throughout the world. Many people are using this time at home to finish off their vehicle builds and projects and I should be too, however since the lockdown was announced I have been working full-time doing contract security work. Suddenly the roles around here have reversed with “She Who Must Be Obeyed” working full-time from home and me now heading out to work daily. At least it keeps the bank account on the right side of the ledger as my other business interests have had a significant downturn. There are lots of projects to do here and while many have the chance…