(Daniel)Over breakfast this morning, Jeff told me that he would like to come
along
on the camping trip this afternoon. Once we had finished eating, we
didn’t have long to wait before Aleyna appeared in her “G4 orange”
monster
to show us the way to the jungle where we would be off-roading and
camping.

As we drove out of town, we stopped for some beers and supplies at
Macro,
and then carried on to a highlands area where we met two other members
of
the LROM. One guy had his whole family along with him, and drove a V8
powered
Defender 110. Actually, they had even brought the maid along with
them! The
other member had brought his Discovery 300TDi, and it emerged that he
had
been the Malaysian representative in the Camel Trophy trials some
years ago!
Among off-roaders this is probably as high an honour as you can get!
We
drove in convoy then to a restaurant where we were treated to a wonderful lunch paid for by the other members. While we waited, another two vehicles
arrived,
we then headed towards the campsite picking up a Toyota Landcruiser
along
the way, just to show a lack of prejudice. Take note Land Rover snobs
of the
UK! Yes, I am just as bad!



As we drove along we passed some amazing Jungle with waterfalls
everywhere,
and people stopped along the roadside collecting drinking water from
some of
these. They were also showering in the small falls. The whole area
was
dammed off and the jungle seemed to carry on into the water. You could
almost imagine that the forest simply continued underwater undisturbed
by
the new wet atmosphere. It must have looked amazing down there at
first
flooding.

After another 30 minutes o the road, we pulled off into a village, and
then
drove out the other side onto a track, just as a couple of other landies
were
driving out! We drove into the jungle track then, and almost
immediately
came to a rock section to climb, before a small but tricky gully
crossing,
followed by several small river crossings, and some great rocks to
pick our
way across. I actually haven’t done much of this off-roading in
convoy, as
my experiences have mainly been solo or in pairs until now. This was a
great
track, and I was a bit sad when we came to the camp site, but this was
soon
replaced by amazement at the beauty of the area. I set up camp, which
only
took a few minutes as usual. This being the major benefit of the Wolfs
setup, with the trailer and Maggiolina rooftent, I can be set up in a
matter
of seconds and be sat down relaxing while the water boils for the
coffee.


The others did not have such sophisticated equipment, so while they
continued to set up, Jeff and I went and cut some fire wood for
later. The
rubber wood was very old, and easy to cut, so we soon found ourselves
with a
pile of wood ready to burn. After all this hot work I went and had a
dip in
the river which ran alongside the camp, meanwhile the others had
finished
setting up camp, and had started to make food and drinks. I cracked
open
the beers in the fridge, and we sat down and talked Land Rover for the
rest
of the evening until the food came. Plenty of BBQ stuff, Chicken,
fish and
various other goodies.




We sat up until late into the night, with the boys singing Indian songs
while I played a little harmonica and the others sat around
chatting. When
we finally got into the roof tent Jeff and I were out like a light!


PREVIOUS | NEXT
|