SURVIVING SAND A

DICK EUSSEN HAS BEEN DRIVING ON SANDY TRACKS AND BEACHES SINCE A LAND ROVER IIA WAS THE 4X4 TO HAVE, AND IN THAT TIME HE'S LEARNED A THING OR. HERE ARE HIS TIPS FOR SAND DRIVING

- DICK EUSSEN

ALL TOO often we hear folks talking about their new 4x4 and say it will mainly see on-road use with maybe an easy beach drive on occasion. It’s as if driving on a beach is easy but, in reality, you're more likely to get bogged in sand than in any other off-road conditions, and you're more likely to lose that new 4x4 to an incoming tide than from some off-road incident out in the bush.

I love heading out bush, even on short trips to a mate’s place to boil the billy or pass Lakelands, south of Cooktown, to cast lures for barra and sooty grunters in the Laura and Normanby rivers. But it’s the country north of Cooktown on the Starkey Track where off-road adventure begins; sand dunes and rutted sandy and windy bulldust tracks that terminate at amazing fishing spots.

It’s the gateway to the Cape and the Northern Gulf. A mate and I often go on a day trip by getting an early start, though mostly we make the most of the escape and camp for a night or more, sitting around a friendly campfire under a starry sky, listening to howling dingoes.

But a trip can go wrong in seconds unless one is aware and prepared for the pitfalls, bogs, slashed tyres and other unforeseen events. It’s all about preparation and driving to the conditions, something I have been doing for decades in my quest for adventures. Allow me to provide you with some handy bush-driving skills that have been part of my life.

BEACHES AND DUNES

WE all tend to drive overloaded vehicles. I run the Toyo A/T tyres on my HiLux at 40psi on bitumen and 36psi on hard dirt roads, but let them down to 12psi on sand dunes. Corrugated roads are best done at 30psi.