My day of going off-road in Hawke’s Bay

Off-road adventurer Nam pauses for a cuppa

Last weekend, I was invited to take part in an off-road adventure in Hawke’s Bay with a group of New Zealanders. It was my first time so I was a little bit scared and I didn’t know what to do and what I would have to face.

The activity began at 8 am in the morning when all the truck drivers gathered on a flat land-lot in front of the forest gate. The group of 10 trucks had been going slowly into the forest. I was asked to sit in a red truck with a man of about 40 years old. Each car must have at least one person to help the driver. Getting inside, I could imagine how adventurous the circuit was as I saw a lot of things in his car: helmet, gloves, wet weather boots, water, GPS receiver, internal phone... and what impressed me most was that lots of mud was everywhere in his car, even in the wheel.

After driving about 1km, we faced the first difficulty. It was a very narrow road, just enough for the width of the car, with many big and deep holes, even wet. It was really hard to overcome these holes while the cars still were well controlled to the left and the right continuously. Around two sides, dense trees gave the driver more troubles because he couldn’t see well. And from then, the driver always manipulated the cars in such a situation. The internal local phone in the truck rang continuously to inform others about the road status that everyone needed to pay attention to.

The most interesting and also very difficult thing was that, about every one km, there was always an obstacle like going over high mountains, which was usually impossible to overcome. This requires the driver to have good driving ability and rich experience. Normally, the car always needs the help of other cars to pull over. That is why when getting to the obstacle, once it has overcome the difficulty, a truck always has to wait for the others behind to give help. After getting over it, the whole group gathers and prepares to confront a new track.

The off-road lasted a full day and I could calculate about seven tracks. It was really exhausting but very interesting. I enjoyed it very much.