Yo [JP]

Thanks for the heads up on my Salisbury plains thread. We tried to make it to Bulford Camp at 10.30, unfortunatley we got stuck behind a 400 year old fella in a blue Vectra estate doing less than 50 all the way from Devizes and then my Sat nav took us the long way around onto the A303 ??? And then got confused around the solstice services. We got into Bulford camp at nearly 10:55.

Whereabouts at Bulford camp were you guys meeting anyway, it's a big place, we could only really see the carpark opposite the garage that sells Land Rovers, but were way late anyway.

Well we were there so went for a play ourselves and had a great day and the disco looks like it's made out of mud. Any thing that looked like it could cause problems and the missus was on with the wellies and off wading to see how deep and what the floor was like.

Hope you guys had a good day and found a load of mud to play in













We found one of the dogs chewing on a dead frog, found it difficult to get it off him, and when we did he and the other pup wouldn't leave us alone because we had it. So I threw it in the mud trap... We went through the water trap. Got up the slope after it and my rev counter stopped working and the battery light was flashing intermitently so pulled over and popped the bonnet to have a butchers



As we did this one of the rangers pulled up to see if we were alright and we were chatting for a while, and blow me but Cheryl, the missus, said "What's this on the side of the engine, looks like a frog"

It was, the same bloody frog we threw earlier had been thrown up going through the mud and stuck on the side of the engine.

Spend the whole day out on the plains, just us we saw a total of 7 other cars all day. I'm getting well into this..

Aye, it was a fab day. The warden that pulled up to see if we were ok was a top bloke and warned us of a nasty water trap and also told some amusing stories of a BMW X5 going trough mud and him having to tow a trooper and rescue and upturned Suzuki...lol. He had recently sold a 300Tdi, so was full of tips and advice for us.

A fab day and a shame we missed you guys, but I'm sure we'll see you at some point.

Oh....before I forget..........anyone else see the policeman in the woods pretending to be on his mobile.....we knw he was stuck really and just couldn't face asking a civvie to tow him out....lol.

gruntygiggles said:

Aye, it was a fab day. The warden that pulled up to see if we were ok was a top bloke and warned us of a nasty water trap and also told some amusing stories of a BMW X5 going trough mud and him having to tow a trooper and rescue and upturned Suzuki...lol. He had recently sold a 300Tdi, so was full of tips and advice for us.

A fab day and a shame we missed you guys, but I'm sure we'll see you at some point.

Oh....before I forget..........anyone else see the policeman in the woods pretending to be on his mobile.....we knw he was stuck really and just couldn't face asking a civvie to tow him out....lol.

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Did the warden tell you where the nasty water trap was?

I think the S*L*U*T*S may be quite familiar with that one.

ratty said:

Did the warden tell you where the nasty water trap was?

I think the S*L*U*T*S may be quite familiar with that one.

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Yeah he did. He was a LR man himself so enjoyed making fun of the idiots that had got stuck in their chelsea tractors...lol

Ratty

Looking at the map of the plains (I know it's a big place but bare with me) find the village near the Fox Covert wood, and find the dotted red lane going in a north east(ish) direction from the south east corner of the village it's a few hundred yards above that

Here's a little map, I'm sorry I can't pin point it, not a map monkey yet. But it's on one of those red dotted lane going North and it's not far from that village, he said it's actually about 5ft deep so be careful




We got to Bulford camp well late, didn't confirm to anyone that we were going because I didn't know about it until the night before so it was a last minute decision to go meet these people we'd never met before.

We couldn't find anyone when we got there after a drive around so we went off down a lane ourselves (keeping a look out for a gold Disco, cos we thought that's what JP had) as we didn't want to waste the 45 mile drive.

Got to a ford where we could see a few 4x4's on the other side just setting off, so I jumped and climbed over the ford and spoke to someone there, couldn't see a gold Disco so vaguely asked if they'd seen anyone else, they said no. I explained we were on our own and asked about easy lanes as we didn't want to get stuck on our own, this fella kindly explained what the routes were like and that set our mind at ease, so said thanks, waved them off and let the dogs out for a play in the ford and carried on to have a great day out.


Anyway, just had a PM from JP and it turns out it was him I was seaking to at the ford..

Ha haaa, would you Adam and Eve it

Here ya go. this is why the water trap is so nasty.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGsbd3aZHCg&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - I'm glad I didn't drive through that[/ame]

psssst. We know it as dafts hole.:behindsofa::bolt:

Yup, that's the one Ratty. We went around it, but the water was quite a bit lower than in that vid. Glad we didn;t do it on our own, but prob would have been ok. Just no point risking getting stuck when we had seen only 6 or 7 cars the whole day!

gruntygiggles said:

Yup, that's the one Ratty. We went around it, but the water was quite a bit lower than in that vid. Glad we didn;t do it on our own, but prob would have been ok. Just no point risking getting stuck when we had seen only 6 or 7 cars the whole day!

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All the water troughs around there look the same. They are all pretty smooth on the bottom except for that one. This is why it's so bad.

That trough and the one next to it can pass the water between themselves too. This means that the water can get deeper without you realising it.

When the Hertford guys came down to salisbury last year I smacked my steering bars out in the shallowest of the troughs. My front bar was gently curved while the rear one was bent into a Z.

It's definately not worth trying them without someone there to pull you out.

I hear ya! It's not even like having a winch would help you in many places on Salisbury as there's sometimes nothing to wrap the winch around! We just play it safe and as you can see by the pics......I have the lovely job of walking the water traps first!

gruntygiggles said:

I hear ya! It's not even like having a winch would help you in many places on Salisbury as there's sometimes nothing to wrap the winch around! We just play it safe and as you can see by the pics......I have the lovely job of walking the water traps first!

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Get yerself 5x 18" pieces of 2" angle iron. cut one end into a point. Drill a hole in the other end (big enough to take a bow shackle). hammer em into the ground and fasten a chain to em with D shackles and you have yerself an el-cheapo ground anchor. To get them back out after use use the high lift to jack em up. Be warned though, My winch solonoid got flooded in them there holes and I needed to spend a day stripping and cleaning and then re-sealing to get it working again. I'm going PTO winch now cos I just don't trust my electric winch. I will be fitting it to the rear of my landy though as an emergency back-up.

ratty said:

Get yerself 5x 18" pieces of 2" angle iron. cut one end into a point. Drill a hole in the other end (big enough to take a bow shackle). hammer em into the ground and fasten a chain to em with D shackles and you have yerself an el-cheapo ground anchor. To get them back out after use use the high lift to jack em up.

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I saw this type of anchor in LRO the other month, get them in line and fasten the top of the first to the bottom of the next and so on along the line yeah??

I like the sound of this, just need a winch now, and a hi lift... And some heavey duty bumpers and rock sliders that we can use the hi-lift on if we need it.. Ha haa, the wish list is long my friend

; )

Sounds good. We're looking at a front winch bumper, but also a decent Tirfor hand winch as well for the flexibility of use. After being pulling the Disco out with one last week, it's something we both want.

gruntygiggles said:

Sounds good. We're looking at a front winch bumper, but also a decent Tirfor hand winch as well for the flexibility of use. After being pulling the Disco out with one last week, it's something we both want.

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If you know of a rear winch bumper up for grabs I have a heavy duty front winch bumper that I will let go. I'm currently planning to be a tight arse and bolt some steel box section to my rear x member and bolt the bumper to that.

gruntygiggles said:

Sounds good. We're looking at a front winch bumper, but also a decent Tirfor hand winch as well for the flexibility of use. After being pulling the Disco out with one last week, it's something we both want.

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Every fookers after a tirfor!Getting good prices on ebay.

ratty said:

If you know of a rear winch bumper up for grabs I have a heavy duty front winch bumper that I will let go. I'm currently planning to be a tight arse and bolt some steel box section to my rear x member and bolt the bumper to that.

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No we don't : (

But keep us in mind when you get around to getting rid of the front winch bumper and hopefully we'll be in a position to take it off you.

What we want is the front winch bumper (with towing eyes and hi-lift jacking points) and winch and will be looking for second hand ones when we have the cash, no idea how much to set aside for this though?? And we want a Tirfor too.

stretchie_ said:

No we don't : (

But keep us in mind when you get around to getting rid of the front winch bumper and hopefully we'll be in a position to take it off you.

What we want is the front winch bumper (with towing eyes and hi-lift jacking points) and winch and will be looking for second hand ones when we have the cash, no idea how much to set aside for this though?? And we want a Tirfor too.

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You would be looking at around £200 for a decent winch bumper and another £200 for a cheap 8000-12000lb chinese winch. (new prices for both). I wouldn't buy a seconhand winch unless you can load test it prior to buying it.

Second hand prices tend to be about the £300 mark for the pair.

My leccy winch pulls fine but doesn't like spooling out when under a heavy load. Release the load a touch and it's fine. It's been like it from new.

I have not been on the plain since 1997 when I became a civvy, wouldnt mind meeting for a trip out down there. Do you meet regularly and can anyone turn up ?

sabc said:

I have not been on the plain since 1997 when I became a civvy, wouldnt mind meeting for a trip out down there. Do you meet regularly and can anyone turn up ?

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We'll definately be going back soon and now know enough good permissible tracks and byways to make it a good fun day, so you're more than welcome to join us whenever that may be, but there will be others that know the place better than us!

Excellent if the motor survives my bank holiday trip to Scotland Ill be up to a trip round the plain.

ratty said:

Here ya go. this is why the water trap is so nasty.

YouTube - I'm glad I didn't drive through that

psssst. We know it as dafts hole.:behindsofa::bolt:

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Dont yu mean Submarine alley?