Fun day at Mt Riley for our offroad winners
On Sunday we took the winners from our Westport Challenge Video Showcase evening over to Mt Riley in Marlborough for some real off road experience courtesy of the Bowater Toyota Extreme Off Road Team.
The day dawned another perfect Nelson winters stunner, with a blue sky beckoning. We headed off to Havelock and The Slip Inn for brunch then over to the extensive 4X4 Tracks on Mike Holme's Mt Riley property.
- The winners from the Westport Challenge evening: Heinz Schwarze, Jayne Collier & Ray Williamson
- On the way to the Mt Riley Off Road tracks we stopped off for brunch in Havelock at The Slip Inn. Very nice!
- The tracks they have got on this property are immense, well thought out and very challenging
- Guy Griffiths in his heavily modified Landcruiser
- This is one of those moments best seen and heard live - it is deceptively steep
- At the top of the previous bank climb
- These moguls are industrial.
- This is the view during one of the bank climbs - almost vertical!
- and ther way down a bank drop - hard to keep it all together & take a photo
- The river bed runs are tons of fun
- don't try this at home....... slick with liquid mud this climb was very fast & intense
- Wet, slippery and steep
- The forest bashing sections were a lot of fun, bouncing off trees to corner is something you have to try at least once
- more bank climbs before we got to the really serious tracks
- Guy Griffiths from the Bowater Toyota Off Road Team - can you tell he quite likes all of this!
- These drops are seriously serious - you can't see what is coming until you are half way down
- Ray Williamson & Heinz Schwarze waiting for their turns and enjoying the sunshine
- To say these are controlled slides is suchj an understatement - the skill is unbelievable
- Check out the gradient, and then you hit the bottom
- Good veiw of the suspension
- Good view of what some of the track was like, at speed!
- Heinz came prepared with his Extreme Nalder Jacket - he was expecting m.u.d.
- These short wheelbase trucks seem to be the order of the day, if you look closely this one has a smashed windscreen from rolling over
- more fun in the stream
- which gets even more fun with more speed
- Driving through the forest between courses was a chance to relax again.
- because some of the courses were quite hairy.....
- Jayne & BMG media manager David relaxing on the go anywhere FJ Cruiser we bought over for the day
- Ray enjoyed his adventure and loved the FJ Cruiser
- Back at base, the FJ is a little dirtier than when we left.
The whole day was an amazing adventure for us all, with the intense video footage still to come!
The concept of the day came about during the planning of the Westport Challenge that was held during the last weekend in April. You can catch up on all of the news, video and photos from that event in the column to the right under the heading "you might also like this".
The purpose of the day was to reward some of our customers with a fun day out experiencing some extreme off road action. We certainly got this and a whole lot more!
Everyone had a fantastic time and it seems we have created some 4X4 converts!
The 4X4 Club are very active, and this kind of open day is a great opportunity for those interested in the sport to come along and see what it is all about.
Looking around, there were a whole lot of unmodified trucks there with folks just giving it a crack, and good on them, that is what these vehicles are designed to be able to do.