We decided to do a reccy again, and to see if we could peice together some more info from the last reccy trip.

We headed staight (ish) to the lane entrance we found last time. Towards the top, we had a quick look at some tracks we had seen on google. As it was dark, it was just enought to get the idea, but as it was night, we didn’t go too far off the main roads.

Down to the roundabout, to confirm if Camo had spotted a different track. He mentioned it on the last trip, but we thought he menat a different one, and dismissed it. However, I had re checked on google, and he was right!

In this area, there were a few little ups and downs, and a little go was had. WAS’s brother was on board, and he had a bit of a go too!

Then we headed towards a track that connected the two areas we had seen on google.

We may have found it, hard to tell at night. We did, we believe, find the one area. I did a foot reccy, and do beleive I found an area we had seen being driven on you tube. Due to the darkness, and the fact the conditions could not be completely known, we followed a track Camo had foot reccied, up towards the start area. We will have to look at this in daylight! (However, my hill walking is getting back into use!)

On the way out, we had a bit of a play on the tump by the roundabout, and gave WAS the opportunity to try out low versus low with Diff Lock. He like!

We folled a diff lane out, and found a little area that had a hill climb, with a choice of 4 routes. One was easish, one ok, one a little greassy, and one, well……step, then a bump, a big dip (wheren people spin after hitting it after the little jump cuased by the bump, and more general spin ruts…..

Was had a go, and as expected had issues with the bump and spin ruts. He came up a diff route. He did go down it, but that bump caused as much problems heading down as up! It launched him enough to loose some of the engine breaking, so had a little run away until it had the time to control it, near the bottom.

We then found the reason why we missed this the last time. These came out a t asection of the lane that had a large contrete platform. Last time we were looking outof the wrong windows!

We had a look around this area, and possibly found some sort of covered shaft. There were evendance of lots of heave beams, for some sort of structure, and an odd…..cover, with a pole attached. Some pictures are in the gallery!

From here, we headed back, going back along the track, and out the other way, heading west. A gentle, slightly rutted track. From here it was back to main roads, and a cruise back home!

Reccy successsfull, a bit of fun, and little sleep until the next possible out!

Will we get to the gap, at around 08:00?

If you look at the time of this post, you can see I am just about to load up, and head out!

Check back here later, and see if there is a trip report for today! (If more pics of work done on the landy are in the gallery instead, then it was probably a no!)

This time we had, Trooper1 and Camougflague, WAS and USIN on board.

We had seen some clips on you tube of an anrea very close to us, and after looking on maps an google, we decided to see if we could find these areas.

We had a rough idea where they where, so heaed out. Trooper took care of most of the navigation, and fairly soon we were near. We headed down one track, then headed back up. We shuffled over some, and found the start of one of the areas.

We headed up a bit of a slope, and headed down. The disco I was travelling handled it so well, we went back up, and I drove down. My first actual off road driving for around 20 years!

We followed a track around, and got to a point where we either were at a dead end, of was beyond night driving reccy scope. Turned around, and follwed the road around some more.

We found a little tump area, and a large circle of ground before it. Now called the roundabout. We had a little play on the tump, then carried on.

We got back to main roads, then Trooper1 had to head off. We headed back home, but on the way had a quick look at a possible other way in. We didnt find the origional way we were looking for, but found a different one.

This turns out to be a nice uphill climb, over fairly rough track, with plenty of loose gravel scattered about.

Enough reccying for one night, with plenty more exploring to do again!

There were 4 of us…..

Camo and Minx in Minx’s Sport trax, driven by Camo, and myself and Cavenam, in Caveman’s Sport Trax.

The plan was to stay local ish, and have a quick out.

We headed out, heading towards the hills, and fairly quickly we found a little ice about. This was about the time that councils were running out of grit, so little side roads were not a priority.

We got the a bit of a hill, (all still on normal highway, tarmac and all!) however the ice coverage was fairly thick. Caveman possibly had some issues with his hub lockers, and we possibly clicked in and out of 4wd. We got up, with some dificulty in places, and attempted to look at the lockers….there seemed that one was out slightly, and was tight to turn. It was turned, possibly too much, or was that a sign of an issue?

we carried on, adn found the snow level. All was good, not issues with traveling along. Still on tramaced roads, not silly enough to actually hit off raod in these conditions.

Still, the nights’ plans were falling onto place, a little out that gave us some nice viewa, and some snow proactice!

After travelling along the snowy path, it was time to head down. This lane was also, a little icy. Camoflague was in the lead, and a the top we stopped to see how his progress was. Well actually, we stopped when we heard an odd radio transmission. It sounded like, we’ve gone…..

And they had….the first bend, and the sort trax didn’t. We tried to reccy the lane on foot….but it was sheer sheet ice. Time to head back up.

When we got both all the way up, we headed back along the snow path, and headed out a different root. That was flatter, and perhaps a little more sheltered. No major issues, but it was travelled extremely slowly, incase  any black ice was around.

A late night, some good experience, with plenty learned!

We took him up to the hills…..

We took the water road up, but it was actually fairly dry, so not too much deep water to wade through.

Then headed to the pylon corner, and headed past the water works to the hills.

We took the track to the quad track, and had a quick spin around there. Trooper1 sild a bit in the heavy ruts at the botom, and got a bit stuck. So it was testing time for the disco! Can he recover a bit of a stuck car?

Ater this headed past the trig, towards Rangy mud hole. Took a left along the main track, until we took another track back up towards the trig. Took another right, and using slightly different tracks headed back towards the water works.

The new Disco handled reasonably well,will only afew small issues. All in all a good test!

We headed off the mountain, but on the way back happened upon a couple of stranded motorists. We were there for several hours. One car started, and the driver sucessfully home, whild another one had to be towed towards home.

It appears that some kids dumped boulders in the road, and these cars hit them, causing the emergency fuel cut offs to trip. We could find the one in one car, but not in another.

Tow complete, it was time to head home. A little late, but a quick trip in the bag!

We headed out, around 22:00, and headed straight to the !Water Lane”. This was the last lane we drove down the other night, and, as the other night, it was stll heavily flooded. It seemed a little easier, as in general this track was downhill in this direction. We got the junction that leads upto the masts, and headed up there.

After visiting the masts, we headed down to the bad bend, and then headed to the track we also did the last time we were out.

We traveled down it, but there was a choice of 3 drops, at the first big drop. This lead to a slightly diffent path, and, this time, with being slightly down hill to last time, and not having drizzle, and low cloud, we could see what looked like a quad track! Of course, we palyed here dor a while, and after that……

We headed on over to the Big Puddle track. We proceded throught the big puddle, and the days since we went throught it last had softened up the mud even more. Really need good guards for this section now!

We stopped, and checked out the cars, to make sure nothing vital hadnt been damaged. We headed out, and had decided to look at a different moutain. We went there, but acess was poor. We marked it for investigtion another night.

On the way back, we stopped to look at some tracks discovered while some of the boys were out mountain biking. We had a sniff around, got a little hung up on the way out, and had some practice using sand ladders, and pushing techniques!

However, at one point little warning was given about a spin up, and we got showered with mud. Ho Hum.

A fun night again. A few more discoveries, and a few more techniques practiced.

Its’ what it is all about!

We headed north, heading into the lanes as soon as we could. We arrived at the start of the hills, and decided to have a little look around, at some tracks to the side of the main route. We found what looked like it would be an excellent hill climb, and nted it to check out, on a daylight trip, (we would not have been able to go up it tonight anyway, as someone had dumped a load of what looked like building waste at the start of the tracks, and we didn’t fancy going over that!)

We headed up, and Spud, with Caveman onboard, headed upto the masts. Cam, with myself as co-pilot, hanged back a bit, and waited for them to drop down, and re-join us on the main track.

We headed over to the hills, and shortly was on the main road. We precceded down there a short while, and turned off, and headed uphilL. This was the reverse route we used the other night, so it was failrly familiar to us. We carried on, past the crest, and had a look around towards the left of the hill. We were not doing too well on the slippery grass and mud, so decided to add a pit stop. We soon headed off the mountain,  we crossed back over, headed to the main road, and headed down to the nearest village. We refulled on pasties, biscuits, and drinks, and dropped our tyre pressures down.

Refuelled, we headed back up to the hills, and took the track back towards the Big Puddle. We have had quite a lot of rain in the last few days, and where this section was quite squiddy the other day, tonight it was more so. After checking it out, checking the amount of sludge that was in the ruts, we decided to call it. We didnt’t think we would get stuck, but the conditions would have meant the cars would be grounding out in places, causing possible damage.

We headed back, and headed back up the hill, the same as we had the other night. We made a few variations on the way back down, taking tracks to the left instead of the right, to vary it a bit.

Spud thought that, instead of us hitting th road early, by heading right, it we head left, we may continue more off road, and join the road close to the other track, we would take towards the masts again. This worked like a charm, and we were near the corner we needed, being around 100 m short.

The other night we took a track don towards a gate, where we had to call it a night, due to having to head home to cover a possible medical emergency. We noticed there was a track that would take us up this hill to the right.

We went down to the gate, and headed 180 back up, heading slightly right towards the other track. This soon turned right, with a long, very straight track up the hill. Cam and I walked most of this to the top, or at least a plateu most of the way up. It was decided this would be an excellent extended uphill section, and marked it for future daytime investigation.

We continued on the track to the right, the start of which was very tight, and close to a wall. This soon opened up, and we began climbing, shallower than the climb we had just walked. we gradually made our way up, and soon re-joined the usual track towards the mast.

There is a section where you had a choice, to keep low, and stay on gravel, or head above the gravel track, on a mud track, which has more of a camber on it (heading towards the gravel track.)

We kept to the gravel, while Spud tried the mud track. Conditions got the better of him, and with the amount of poor ground, and severe camber, he bailed, the slippage was too great. He carried up the gravel track.

We were at the top, and in case they needed assistance, we headed down, and took the mud track. 85% of the track was fine, or at least reasonable. We came appon the tricky section, however, we were heading downhill, and was able to tacke this section, all be it with some considerable slippage!

We rejoined the gravel track again, and we then carried on up…..

Spud and Caveman, in the lead car, decided (?) to mix it up a bit, and instead of taking the usual track up, headed to the left again. This provided a very enjoyable section, with a lot of water, fairly deep, and some fairly long too.

The first section was reasonable, and was quite a good laugh. One section, while we were waiting for Spud to go through, we noticed the water at the back went above the lights in Spuds back bumper, so pretty deep!

We powered through, not giving the water time to seep into anything. (We did have a split second lights off moment though!)

Soon after going through this section we returned to a normal road, and it was time to head home.

A really good night out., with new areas spoted for further investigation.

The Slags are a bunch of slag heaps, with some gentle, and not so gentle slopes leding into, and up them. They are approached from common land, following tacks with varying degrees of roughness.

We approached through the woods, and already it was dark. (Some may think it is mad to go off road in the dark, but, with good lights, and a sence of caution, it is doable! Best to go there is daylight first, so you can see how the ground lies.)

We took some gentle rises, stopping and checking the ground for routes, and to check nothing had been dumped there, which we would have been unaware of. This was an enjoyable series of climbs, ending in a few steep drops to bring us out of the slags, at the back end.

We circled back to the wooded entrance, finding a few small puddles to play in at the end.

We left the slags, and headed for the masts, along the fairly rutted track. All was going well, however, with the heavyrain we have had in this area lately, there were some bits of deep water.

We stopped and took some pictures, to show how deep it was. Spud’s SportTrak can be seen here, water upto the running boards!

After this we headed along the track, until a track heading up the hill to our left was navigatable. We headed up the hill, the terain consisting of grass over rock, so the ground was quite firm here, and the two sporttrak’s in the convoy toddled up without any incidents.

At teh top, we stoped for a natter, and to gather our bearings.

Heading down was mainly gentle slopes, with flat sectiosn, and this turned out to be gentle enough for MudBaby12 to have some practice in off-roading!.

We continued down to the main (err really?) road, and we headed towards the track that would head over more common ground towards the masts. We decided to explore a little, and headed down a track to the right. This was a fairly slow section, involving heavily rutted and rocky track, puntuated with tracks off the the left, with a steep drop to the right.

At this time ( approx. 00:40) we had a call to return home, due to a medical emergency. We dropped down the track, turned around, and headed to civilitation.

All turned out fine at home, arriving there around 01:30.

An enjoyable time was had, Night Off-Roading!

I intend to do little reviews of the off raod trips that are made, with me acting as co-pilot and photographer.

We headed north, looking at a few areas we have looked at on Google maps (satalite view), and some tracks we saw on trial wise.

We found some nice snow drifts in a lane, and just had to play! Camo did our site logo in the snow, using a maglite, and then, a little further up, Trooper1 decided to see how deep the snow was, by driving into the bank….

We crossed Gelligear Common, heading towards a few placeswe knew about. We decided to head towards Trefil Quarry.

We had a bit of a look around there, and headed to the small lake /  puddle, that had been frozen a few weeks before….

Camo did an ice check, and discovered that there were some……patches that were……a little thin.

That was enough for us to realise that it wouldn’t carry the weight of trooper, or HIS trooper!

We gradually headed back towards home, taking a few sights in on the way.

We had a bit of a chat on the cb on the way back too, which added to the entertainment!

A useful reccy, and more info filled in on the areas we can, and can’t go, in our area.