| The arrival in the early 1970s of Nissans and Toyotas to challenge the market dominance of Land Rover and Jeep was the start of the brand loyalty and rivalry that continues to this day. In an early attempt to settle the dispute over “What is the best cross-country vehicle?” the first “Deadwood Safari” (so named because part of the course ran along the Deadwood Ridge” - a main ridge in the Akatarawa Ranges) was held. Enthusiasts set up a course along the Deadwood Ridge and placed advertisements for off-road vehicles to compete. This drew replies from as far afield as Palmerston North, Hastings and Martinborough, as well as from the Greater Wellington and Hutt districts. According to the records, there were 53 entries in this first Deadwood Safari, with the winner being A. Mclean. This Deadwood Safari was the catalyst from which the Wellington Cross Country Vehicle Club (CCVC) was conceived when 11 safari enthusiasts gathered together in an Upper Hutt workshop to discuss whether a 4WD would be a viable proposition. From these small beginnings in 1971 CCVC has grown to be one of the largest clubs of its type in New Zealand with around 250 members. Today the club caters for all types of off-road driving with four grades of trip. The Family 4x4 and Shiny 4x4 grades tend to be primarily suitable for vehicles that are used as everyday transport and where damage is less likely. The Club 4x4 and Hard Yakka grades are more focused on providing a driving challenge and aimed at those who don’t mind some damage during the trip, and who don’t need to use their vehicles every day. In addition to trips of all classes, the club runs a number of community service activities each year, including sunset tours and Akatarawa Forest tag-alongs for the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), Keep New Zealand Beautiful beach clean-ups, and marshalling support for various community tag-alongs. People start their association with the club by coming along as a visitor on the Family 4x4 trips. These are typically easy, non-damaging trips, but many visitors are still amazed at what they and their vehicle can handle. After completing the joining requirements, including some guidance in handling various off-road driving situations and ensuring their vehicle meets appropriate safety standards, new members can work their way up to the level of trip they find most satisfying. Many members never progress beyond the Family 4x4 and Shiny 4x4 grades while others embrace the challenge and work their way up to Hard Yakka trips. With the club’s 40th birthday looming the committee decided to put the club’s experience in running tag-alongs to use for the club itself and run a public tag-along following the route of the club’s first trip between the end of the Wainuiomata Coast Road and Ocean Beach in the Wairarapa. As tag-alongs are also often the first exposure that many people have to 4WDing, this was also seen as an opportunity to promote the club to potential new members. Being one of the club’s trip leaders, leading some of the Family and Shiny 4x4 trips, I was asked to be involved. What most people don’t realise when they are taking part in a tag-along is the amount of pre-trip planning involved. Before wheels even meet track the organising team was hard at work planning the route, arranging access, preparing advertising and selecting a support crew for the day. Two weeks before the trip the whole leader and marshal team drove the route both ways. The first part of the trip was in the reverse direction from the actual tag-along, from the Wellington side to Ocean Beach. Apart from being the best (read “most fun”) way to get to where the tag-along would start, this gave us a chance to make sure that the track was in acceptable condition for shiny vehicles and to mark the route through the biggest shingle fan. We expected to need to do some repair work here since the shingle fans always get cut up after heavy rain, but this time we only needed to do a bit of track marking as another group had been through a few weeks earlier and done some thorough track maintenance. We stopped on the far side of the shingle fan to sort out options for the next section. The upper track that had just been cut was no problem and the obvious route for the shiny vehicles, but a try of what looked like the easiest of the boggy routes, proposed to give those looking for a challenge more fun, saw the test vehicle bellied in the mud within one car length. With this resulting in an interesting recovery, we decided that everyone would stick to the new track. Once on the new section of track, the route for the rest of the trip was easy to follow and no problem for experienced drivers, so we were soon at Ocean Beach. After pausing at Ocean Beach to sort out where we would park everyone, where the marquee would be set up, and other administration details, we set the stop-watch going and headed back. Several of the marshals had brought their family 4WDs on road tyres and were travelling with their tyres still at road pressure to simulate the situation many of the participants would be in on the day. We also kept the speed down to less than 20 km/h and stopped at various points of interest. We figured that the time we spent working out where we would park everyone on the day was about the same as the time we would spend letting everyone have a good look around. Returning back over the shingle fan, we noted it seemed easier in this direction. Some time was spent here making sure that the track markings were easy to follow as we didn’t want someone missing the track because they hadn’t seen where the person in front had gone. By the time we got back to the Orongorongo River we were highly satisfied with the condition of the track, and it had been a fun trip in fantastic weather. The final part of the trip was to be up the side of the Orongorongo River, returning down the river bed. If the right line was picked this was an easy drive, but trying to remember the right line for the real trip was more of a challenge. Instructions such as “At the 23rd crossing you need to keep left of the rock with a pointy bit on top” was never going to work for me. Half way down the river we got the message that one of the vehicles had suffered a broken front leaf spring. The 20 minute wait while a bush repair was carried out started out as a very pleasant sit in the sun but then the promised cold front swept in and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in 10 minutes. We finally got everyone out and aired up just before the rain hit. A real reminder about how fast the weather can change on the south coast. The morning of the actual trip dawned clear and warm. A few of the marshals were going over the Rimutaka Hill Road to the Wairarapa and back down to Ocean Beach but the rest of us were doing a final reverse direction run from the Wainuiomata Coast Road. This meant a very early start from home so we could hit the track before 7 am. The early start meant that we got superb early morning views across the south coast and over to Cape Palliser. We arrived at Ocean Beach by 8:30 in time for a second breakfast – a bit of a change from my normal experience of arriving for a late lunch. |
The participants started arriving about 9 am and by 10 am we were ready to head out. As some of the participants had had quite a long wait, our first stop was at Corner Creek campsite where the Department of Conservation had recently installed two toilets. Many of the participants also took the opportunity to explore the beach and photograph the fishing boats and the bulldozers used to launch and recover them.
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CCVC 40th birthday fundraiser
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
