Firstly I would like to thank everyone who came on the Ice Run on Saturday 30th of December, none of you were late, you all signed in and everyone was well behaved and patient with us who were leading the groups.  Secondly I would like to thank the Half Moon pub in Shaftesbury for its good food and service when an extra 20 or so customers turn up all within a half hour or so, although I think the pre-ordering helped.  Thirdly I would like to thank Kirk and Jeff for leading the other two groups without making any more than a tiny mistake or two, Jeff!  Fourthly I would like to thank Mother Nature for the Rainbows, but maybe not the rain that caused huge floods as well as causing me to be stuck in a puddle for 10 minutes until I could dry off my dizzy cap enough to get started again.  In fact the rain seemed to play quite a part in the second part or the Ice Run, but lets start at the beginning.

 Back on July 30th 2006 I organised a lane event through Wiltshire and into Dorset, most people who did the event enjoyed the lanes but were not such big fans of all the dust as it had been quite dry weather around that time, with discussion it was decide to run those lanes again in winter time, while I was organising it I thought I would include a few other lanes near my home that I thought the club would enjoy.

 We started off from Morrissons car park in Verwood and headed off to the first lane on the outskirts of Verwood, its a Byway and is an easy lane as it is well kept with a gravel bottom for most of its length, leaving this lane it is only about 300m to the start of the next lane near the Heavy Horse Centre, this is a UCR and is again gravel under mud for most of its length but does include some interesting pot holes and a river crossing as well as a few trees that need careful navigation if your vehicle is tall or has a roofrack, once off this lane it is only 5 mins to the village of Cranborne and then another 12-15 minute drive to the village of Sixpenny Handley, near to where the next lane begins.

 The next lane we used is a Byway that heads off between two rows of trees in the bottom of a valley and climbs out the end of the valley to join the Oxdrove, this lane is quite bumpy as you bounce over all the tree roots and then widens out for a minute or two before it climbs up the hill where it becomes "a bit scratchy!" in places, joining the Oxdrove Byway we headed in Shaftesbury's direction with lovely views off to our right out over Shaftesbury and surrounding areas, this part of the Oxdrove is gravel under mud to start with and then becomes gravel under mud + tree roots before leading out onto a tarmac road, we followed the road towards Win Green before turning left onto the next Byway that heads off towards Tollard Royal village, this lane is mainly gravel with a couple of small muddy sections and a steep downhill towards the village, once again there are wonderful views and also off to the right on this lane is Ashcombe house, which supposedly has famous owners.

 Leaving The 20mph speed limit in Tollard Royal village we turned right to the next lane, a UCR that goes up over a reasonably steep hill and across to the village of Farnham, this lane has a hard stony bottom covered by several inches of leaf mulch and was slightly slippery on the uphill section, then it was just a couple of minutes drive to the next lane which is a Byway running from Chettle Village to Tarrant Hinton village, this lane starts as a gravel lane and becomes a dirt bottomed track where it enters a small wood, on this track my passenger Rob, started to earn his keep as there are two gates to navigate, this lane is especially nice to drive when the woods are carpeted with Bluebells, but on this day it was very slippery as the track had been torn up by recent logging activity.

 From Tarrant Hinton we took the main A road to the next village of Pimperne where we left the A road and started the next lane which is a Byway, which heads slowly uphill into a small wood, this lane is gravel for much of its length but turns to dirt bottomed after it leaves the wood, turning left at the end of this Byway we used a few minor roads to reach the next lane 10 mins away.

This is a UCR that runs downhill between two very high banks that are covered in trees, I have found this lane blocked by trees on several occasions but it allways seems to be cleared again, I think the home owner at the bottom of the lane uses them for firewood judging by the size of the logpile he has that spills out onto part of the lane, going through there this time the lane was very narrow due to some more fallen trees and Rob had to get out to help move a fallen branch as we were creeping through, this lane comes out in the village of Melbury Abbass where we quickly crossed the A road and followed some minor roads round to the next lane a UCR called Drones lane.

 When I first investigated this lane a year or two ago it was extremely rutted by the farmer who had been running his Tractor and Dung Spreader repeatedly up and down the lane, however a month or two ago I decided to re-investigate this lane and to my surprise the ruts had been filled in and the lane was useable again, the first part of the lane is dirt track and is passable with care if you are on standard suspension and tyres as the lane still has one or two ruts along it, but the second half is all gravel and hardcore with jus a couple of gates to navigate before you reach and cross the A road and head into the village of Compton Abbas, from Compton Abbas a UCR heads steeply uphill towards a small airfield, this lane is quite steep in places with a couple of washouts but is very hard underfoot and I am told was in regular use as recently as the 1960's.

 Turning left onto tarmac at the top of this lane we followed the roads to Shaftesbury and our Pub Lunch at the Half Moon, as we reached the pub the heavens opened and soaked me and Rob as we ran for the pub.

 One splendid meal later we were on our way again.  I was to find out later that as group 2 left the carpark they picked up a hanger on in the form of a couple in a Series 2 from Wales who thought that we looked like we knew what we were doing and would be good to follow, I was leading group 3 and so hadn't seen this happen.

 From Shaftesbury we headed towards Semley way to do a short but interesting Byway through some woods, this lane starts off as gravel before dropping down a steep clay section then crossing a small stream and heading up a long steep hill, as we headed up a small river of water was going down the other way, due to the heavy rain at lunchtime, it was quite slippery with the lane going from dirt to gravel and back again before coming out onto another minor road, we turned right onto this road and headed downhill to the village of Donhead St Andrew, coming to what seemed to be a T junction at Donhead St Andrew we went straight across onto a UCR that climbs steeply through some woods before levelling out as a lane between some fields at the top of the climb there is a large lump of earth that pushes your vehicle up and to the left and if you are not positioned correctly it can damage your vehicle on the surrounding trees, this lane comes out on an A road so we turned left onto the A road and followed it for 4-5mins until a Crossroads were we turned right onto the next lane.  This UCR goes between some farm buildings and down hill on a very old tarmac surface before becoming a dirt track for a short distance and then a hard bottomed Byway as it climbs the steep hill at the other end, it then joins up with the Old Shaftesbury Drove Byway that goes from Salisbury to Shaftesbury.

 We followed the Old Shaftesbury Drove for 10-15 mins or so seeing some beautiful Rainbows along the way before taking a very sharp right (3 point turn!) onto another Byway that goes downhill towards Alvediston Village, this lane is a solid bottomed dirt lane, it also has several points that are quite scratchy along it.

 Joining a minor road at the bottom of the valley we headed into Alvediston to find the next lane, the village of Alvediston was completely flooded, the water pouring down off of the hills after the torrential rain had turned its main road into a river at least 6 inches deep in places and there was still more water pouring off the fields and down lanes to swell the already flooded river nearby.  We turned left onto a lane that had more in common with a stream and followed that to a UCR that was surprisingly not flooded so we climbed up the other side of the valley to join the Ox Drove Byway.

 We turned left onto the Ox Drove and could now see that most of the valley below was quickly becoming a river, that wasn't to say that there wasn't any water left up the top of the hill, the Oxdrove puddles were twice as deep as usual and I was very glad there was a gravel bottom underneath all that water, although one puddle proved to be too deep and drowned the spark on my Rangy forcing me to exit the puddle using the starter motor, then I dried my dizzy cap with a piece of tissue and managed to get it going again, carrying on along the Ox Drove we caught up with the 2nd group as Steve's Rangy was having a few problems with its fuel pump and so he decided when he finally got it going again (by that time it had got dark) that he and Jeff would retire and head for home leaving me to lead the remaining vehicles to the finish,.  After bumping and scratching our way to the end of Ox Drove Steve left us and we all pulled over to check our vehicles before the final stretch to the finish, I pulled out first heading for a short Byway on the right that leads across to Whitsbury Down, this is a muddy rutted lane and I wasn't 100% sure if I should use it or not after the rain but it seemed to be reasonably dry and so on we went, we crossed a minor road onto a gravel section with houses down one side, the byway then became a mixture of stone and dirt surfaced lanes as we followed it down to the corner of Great Yews wood, at one point I managed to get stuck in a deep rut and had to use all of mine and Robs combined weight to "bounce" the Rangy back out, so then we carried on, taking the left hand fork and following the Byway between two fields before crossing another Byway and through a very large puddle to join a third Byway which we followed into Downton to complete the Ice Run.

 Stopping in the Bull Inn in Downton for a relaxing pint we all shared our experiences of the day.  From the feedback from those who made it to the end, it was a great success.

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