Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [58]
But the river was deepening all the time. Soon the gear stick simply jutted out from a sea of brown like a dead branch. The wheels scrabbled for grip in the muddy riverbed, digging even deeper holes for the vehicle, and I had to acknowledge that my Defender had now arrived at that situation described in off-road parlance as 'sinking'.
'Leave me,' I ordered. 'Go on, and save yourselves.' It seemed sensible to sit tight, listen to España FM, eat my chocolate and hope for rescue by a craft better suited to the terrain. A boat, perhaps. As I settled down for the long wait I began recording some observations concerning the interior, or what I could still see of it. It's rather basic and free of any extraneous feature save the radio. It may now be largely devoid of bare metal but that essential hose-down quality survives in the slightly brittle plastics, and the Defender was to become the only vehicle I've ever jet-washed on the inside.
A man appeared on the bank with a stout rope. 'Out you get,' he yelled. For some reason that I still don't understand I clambered out through the window. Perhaps I sensed, instinctively, that opening the door would let water into the vehicle.
Up to my nads in the river, I attached a tow rope. But the ignominy didn't end with being hauled out. Though successfully beached, I noticed that the Defender was still full of water. A helpful colleague opened the passenger door to let it out, with the result that my rations were immediately swept overboard and back into the river, necessitating a second bout of wading to effect the most important recovery operation of the day.
I still wasn't in the clear, because there was a steep and seemingly unassailable bank to ascend. Incredibly, the Defender went straight up it, but when I returned to the slope to embrace the team spirit and help my stranded colleagues, I fell straight on my arse. This means either that the Defender is even more capable than I first imagined, or that more of the R&D budget needs to be spent in the boot department.
I wish it to be known that Autocar magazine made it up the bank thanks mainly to sterling spade work by your own correspondent.
Further along the trail was Land Rover's favourite off-road obstacle, the v-shaped gully. This is best approached at an angle, to prevent grounding out. 'Nice and steady,' said Sarge. 'This one could easily tip you on to the roof.' I put the nearside front wheel into the ditch and the Defender responded with a lightning blow to the side of the head with the door frame. An absurd angle of incidence was achieved, wheels hung in the air (diff lock!) and all unsecured objects in the cabin formed a neat pile on the passenger door. This was ridiculous. If I was going to end up on the roof I wanted it to be the result of a 150mph get-off in a mid-engined supercar, not of creeping forward at 0.2mph while surrounded by men from the West Midlands telling me how to drive.
But I have to say that I made it. The Defender may handle like a Bechstein on a real road but out in the cuds it will cross terrain that I'd hesitate to tackle on a donkey. As its chassis components are made largely of pig-iron it's virtually impossible to break, and if the bodywork sustains a few dents it somehow looks better for it. At the very least you could always just pull the thing apart and knock them out with the heel of your coarse boot.
I did slightly less well at the long and terrifyingly steep descent, followed by the dried-up watercourse and the equally long ascent up the other side, another