Event Reports

The Solent And District Land Rover Club

Halloween Haunting’s

by Rob Marriott

This year Jez agreed to plan, organise and run the Halloween Green Lane run.  It was going to finish too late for the girls to come along with me and I didn’t fancy trundling around in my wagon on my own so I agreed to tag along with him.  This meant I could act as navigator (if needed), boiled sweet supplier and photographer.  Jez picked me up from home and then we met up with Justin in Ringwood at the A338 / A31 roundabout.  From there we headed up to Salisbury (stopping for petrol and water (V8’s!!)) and then out on to the A30 to the Pleasant Hotel.  When we got to the hotel Dave was already there.  It took all of 2 seconds to decide that a beer was in order while we waited for the rest of the members to arrive.

Once everyone arrived we got into the vehicles and headed out to the lanes.  It was the first time I’ve been out on the lanes at night and it’s a strange experience.  Your whole perception of the world is compressed to size of your headlight beams.  The first lane had a hard surface and ran into a wood.  There were a couple of tricky bits where we had to thread our way through trees but most of it was easy going.  From here we headed through a couple of tarmac sections and then through some more similar lanes.

The next lane we took had height restriction gates to keep out ‘undesirables’.  These are set to allow Land Rovers  and other 4x4’s through but stop the likes of van’s and caravan’s.  This was a bit concerning as a number of our vehicles had large spring lift’s.  The biggest concern was Justin’s vehicle which is really tall.

As you can see from the picture Justin’s vehicle did clear the gate, but only just!

To get on the next lane we had to take a sharp left off the road which dropped down through a ford and then onto the lane.  About ½ a mile up the lane from this we spotted a barn owl sat on a telegraph pole.  We stopped to take a look at her and she took off and flew up along the lane so we took this as a cue to follow.  Further down the lane was the first (and last) set of puddle’s of the evening.  We splashed up through this and then up through a washout section.  We had not gone far when the vehicle behind flashed its lights to ask us to stop.  We got out and wandered back down the lane to find out what the problem was. 

When we got back to the puddle we found that the problem was that Leon had taken the puddle with a lot of enthusiasm and managed to soak his coil and distributor.  This was killing his ignition spark meaning his engine would not run.  After drying out the distributor and a liberal soaking with WD-40 Leon got it back running again.

Walking back up the track I managed to step into a hole and badly twisted my ankle.  I heard a click and felt a stab of pain but carried on back up the lane and got back into Jez’s Rangie.

We continued along the route without any further problem’s.  Unfortunately the last lane on the planned route had had a TRO (Traffic Restriction Order) put on it so we could not drive it.  Instead we headed straight to the finish pub, this was just down the road from King’s Sombourne.  When we got there we had a bit of a chat in the car park and then most people headed home.  The couple of us that didn’t headed into the pub for a beer.

Jez then lead everyone back to Romsey where we all went our separate ways.  Jez dropped me home and after seeing him off I went in and took my boots off.  As soon as I did I realised how swollen my left ankle was.  With the boot off it continued to swell.  Kel (my wife) took one look at it and packed me off to A&E.  Once I got there the duty doctor sent me off to X-ray to take a look.  Sure enough when the X-ray came back it showed that I had broken very bottom of my fibula bone in my ankle.  The doctor gave me the option of either having it plaster cast or put in a tubigrip bandage.  As I hate wearing plaster casts I jumped for the tubigrip option.  Looks like I’ll be on crutch’s for a while, lucky my vehicle is an automatic!

Not the best end to the evening but it as not put me off the idea of night lane trips.  They are something I’m really interested in doing more of.  I’ll be looking where I’m walking in future though!

For more pictures of this event click HERE.

                                                
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