We met one beautiful, crisp spring morning at Colin Burden’s Auckland ‘office’ in the old Woodhill Forestry building on Restall Rd between Kumeu and Helensville. After a chat and briefing we saddled up the Isuzu and headed north then west to Rimmer Rd and the Polaris 4WD Park at Woodhill Forest.

Now if you are thinking we were off for a day of ‘bush-bashing’ you couldn’t be more wrong.

As Colin told me; ‘we’ll head into the forest first but we will be taking it easy. We definitely don’t rush things with what we do and basically with your driving you will absorb things by osmosis as you go.”

What Colin wanted to do first was to assess my basic approach and competency then introduce some tried and trusted off-road techniques where he felt they were needed!

“My training,” he explained, “is all about core basics. I don’t complicate things. The thinking off-road is at times quite different to on road driving so basically we are looking at techniques that work. The key is to explain things clearly and in a way that people can accept and put into practice straight away.

“My techniques are not the only ones but they have proven to work. Other people have other ideas which work for them and that’s fine.”

To read the full story in the 2016 NZ4WD Annual & SUV Buyer's Guide issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (on sale December 14) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.