North towards Swindon
Day 2, we headed north towards Swindon and the trail was pretty good with metalled tracks up until we entered a field. The trail cut across the field and it had obviously been a regular run for the farmers tractors, making the ruts deep and a week of rain and you have a Defender killer.
First across this 100m stretch was the Disco 3 on muds, it makes it but just. Next was a Disco 2 on road tyres which made it about 20 metres before getting stuck, an easy pull out backwards.
Next up was Emilia (Defender 110), which got about 50 metres in before you get that familiar slowing feeling before the wheels start spinning. I wasn’t just stuck I was properly stuck, momentum had got me far enough in so that all 4 wheels were sunk and without traction, no amount of forward/backward wheel turning could find traction.
First action was to break out the mud/sand ladders, my sand ladders are solid and are not like modern plastic version which have tapered end as a result it’s hard to get them under the tyres. The result was that the tyres could not bite the ladder to climb up onto them. Now covered in mud, I am thinking I need to put gloves in my recovery bag.