At the end of January 2008 we spent a weekend at Stoney Ridge doing a 4x4 course and having a great time. Our instructor, John, was an excellent tutor giving us lots of encouragement when tackling the various obstacles. We both took the course and had turns in negotiating the various sections. Pat and Colin also came, although Pat didn't do any driving,  they both enjoyed themselves. 

Apart from Tracey who had her own vehicle (a jeep) all the other drivers were guys - seems to me that most wives let their husbands do all the offroad driving in South Africa.  Both of us being able to drive and know how to tackle challenges has meant that we've been comfortable going out on our own most of the time.           

We were lucky with the other people on the course as everyone got on well. Good company, great food and first-rate teaching - we can recommend Stoney Ridge to anyone who wants to learn how to tackle off road driving and begin to practice some recovery methods for a 4x4.

 We started each day with theory workshops followed up by challenging practical tasks.

To start with John would walk us through each of the obstacles explaining what to do and then we took it in turns to tackle them with John always around to give advice.  Later he would show us  an obstacle and ask us how we would go about negotiation it. 

One day we spent most of the day in a river valley doing some recovery work.  We learnt that you should always have the hood up (see last photo) when being pulled out of mud/sand with a snatch rope in case it breaks.