The ninth Canteen 4WD trip run and the eighth consecutive year that the 4WD community in Western Australia has participated in this very worthwhile activity. Every year the trip is run a little differently and this year was no exception.

There is a fair amount of planning involved in putting this event together as there is a heap of coordination going on behind the scenes between West Coast 4X4 (Inc) 4WD Club and Canteen well before the event. A special thanks to all the drivers for getting their police clearances in on time and thanks to the following organisations for being kind enough to donate some funds to help take some financial burden off Canteen for this awesome off-road event.

• Ross North Homes

• Electsales - (a division of Retravision)

Other organisations <personnel> supporting with their time and money...

• West Coast 4X4 (Inc) 4WD Club

• Online Refrigeration

• Hatch Engineering

Organisations that have been asked to support this event financially that have refused to help or are still pending confirming their support, are...

• Track Care WA (Inc) - Outright refused to support, mentioning that the event was not part of their charter, even though the 4WD tracks we use for this event may well be listed as heritage trails just because this event is run on particular 4WD tracks every year for the last 8 years and all that was asked for was a small donation to offset the costing of police clearances.

• The WA 4WD Association (Inc) still waiting for them to make a decision. It will be two months after the initial request and three weeks after the event when we will receive an answer, yes or no! 

So far a very disappointing effort from both our prominent 4WD bodies here in WA.

Drivers and vehicles for 2004 transporting 30 canteen members were...

• Froggy (Trips Leader) - Toyota Land Cruiser, 4L 6cyl petrol. 

• Fish (Track Marshal) - Toyota Prado, 4L V6 petrol..

• Braveheart (Member) - 80 Series Toyota Land Cruiser, 4.2L turbo diesel auto.

• Pluto (Track Marshal) - Nissan GU Patrol, 2.8L 6cyl intercooled turbo diesel.

• MacGyver (Tail End Charlie) - Nissan GU Patrol, 2.8L 6cyl intercooled turbo diesel.

Canteen Coordinator for the event...

• Maria Miceli.

Canteen asked us to take on all of their groups this year - siblings, offspring and some of their patients. We were to transport them to Lancelin where their members were booked into the Lancelin Lodge. We the motley crew, the drivers (Canteen only required drivers this year) shacked down away from the Canteen members at one of the West Coast members properties in Lancelin. Many thanks to Robbo again for allowing us the use of his holiday residence.

We were an hour late at getting away at Canteen in Nedlands, though the drivers all made a special effort getting there on time, well done guys, proud of you all ;-) Reason we were so late in getting away was members from Canteen were waiting for Pizza to arrive, good onya Domino Pizza's for forgetting about the order, gees?! In the end one of the Canteen leaders had to go pick their dinner <Pizza's> up.

Once a few guidelines and ground rules from the drivers perspective were delivered to the Canteen members and the two West Coast 4X4 support vehicles packed and then Canteen members allocated a seat in each vehicle, we were on our way. Preceding with a radio check whist in transit exiting Canteen at Nedlands, we proceeded to head for the Mitchell Freeway, bearing North.

It was a fairly easy exit out of the metro area and many thanks to all the drivers for their patients and tolerance through the Friday night traffic and keeping it all together, especially my tail end, thanks MacGyver. Oh, and I forgot to mention, we had a ninth vehicle in the convoy, the Canteen's coordinators vehicle, a 3.4L V6 Toyota Prado, petrol. This vehicle was to be the run around vehicle for Canteen whilst in Lancelin.

Whist on the move, my passengers were intrigued about the GPS (Magellan Meridian Colour) mounted on the dash and what information it could actually display and was displaying on the move, all very interesting to them indeed.

On they way up, we had a scheduled stop at the Moore River Bridge - Lancelin Rd. Here, Canteen members were to exchange seats, moving everyone around a bit. And so far as to say, the Prado (Canteen vehicle) missed the turn off and had at least four of West Coast's vehicles following the Prado up the highway, even though one of our vehicles was actually waiting at the corner of the turn off. Maybe I should have mentioned something about convoy procedure to the driver of the Prado, hmmm! Oh well, ya get that!

We arrived at Lancelin an hour late, though it wasn't passed midnight ;-) Quickly unpacking the support vehicles, the drivers headed for Robbo's joint and went about settling in for the evening. It was going to be a great boys weekend during the downtime away from the Canteen members, that's for sure. I hit the sack reasonable early as I was still trying to shake a summer lurgy, just finishing a round of anti-biotic's, so alcohol consumption had the thumbs up for the weekend during the downtime, though ONLY in the evenings. I believe some of the lads hit the hey around 2.30am, staying up watching some DVD's I believe ;-)

Saturday mornings downtime was a pretty casual affair for us, some of the drivers cooking up bacon and eggs and others finishing off the scraps left over after having there usual intake of cereal. All cleaned up (body and soul) we headed into town in some sort of dysfunctional manner out of convoy, first stop, hehhhehehe - oh yeah! the Lancelin Bakery - first in best dressed for sticky buns ;-) As for me, off I went to top up my petrol guzzling thirsty uneconomical wallet burning beast.

The rendezvous was back at the Lancelin Lodge at 9.00am to pick up the Canteen members of which, you guessed it, Canteen members were 30 minutes behind schedule, but they were showing signs of improvement ;-) An hour late last night and 30 minute this morning ;-) Getting better! Anyhow, this gave me a chance to make some last minute adjustment to the mighty 60' before getting away, like putting up a sand flag and making some fine GPS coordinate adjustments.

Both support vehicles were loaded with gear packed in and tied down. It was decided to leave the Canteen vehicle <Prado> at the Lodge due to off-road vehicle insurance implications. We all headed out in convoy right through the middle of Lancelin with all head lights a blazing heading straight for the dunes. The plan was to head around the front and then the back of the dunes for Wedge Island via the Army Tracks way east of Beacon Rd then stop at the water tanks for morning tea and head for Wedge Island by Lunch time. High tide was right on lunch time by the GPS, so heading back along the beach to Lancelin via Narrow Neck and Dide Bay might be an issue later in the afternoon. All waypoints were set and away we went. Pluto was double checking my turns from the middle of the convoy, so we wouldn't wind up in Cateby. The tracks were in good condition, possible the better track to Wedge Island than any of the others.

Canteen members were given a hand held UHF radio per vehicle set to channel 14, whilst the drivers were on UHF channel 10 with their in car rigs. We came across the Subaru Club on the same 4WD track whom were also on Channel 14 and were listening in on the Canteen members conversation, which was for the most part a heap of dribble, but they were enjoying it and having lot's of fun. I just wonder what the Subaru club members were thinking listening to the Canteen members conversations :-\ Many thanks to the Subaru Club for allowing us free passage past their convoy, no idea why they were travelling so slow! Maybe trying to make sense of the Canteen members conversation which might account for having difficulty dealing with driver concentration.

The convoy connected up to Beacon Rd and about half way to the dunes that backup near Wedge Island, we came across a 75' Series Troopie and a GQ Patrol. The Troopie was towing a trailer with two quad bikes on board. Our convoy was held up for the best part of 20 minutes waiting for these people to un-bog the Troopie with the trailer attached. Their method of de-bogging the Troopie was unbelievably unsafe and with me having 'Austracks 4WD Training' written across the front windscreen of my 60' plain as day, they didn't think of coming over and asking for advise, beauty fella's. The West Coast 4X4 convoy managed to almost get in front of them, why I say almost, we were in convoy and they didn't have the common decency to hold back from the other 4WD track they were on to flag us on when the 4WD tracks merged, after all, they were travelling slower than we were due to their trailer in tow. Its unbelievable the pure ignorance of some 4WDriver's out there. Its no wonder the 4WD community has such a bad name now-a-days!

Our convoy headed straight onto the dunes behind Wedge Island allowing the Toopie and GQ to peel off from the Convoy and head straight ahead to the point at Wedge. I led the lads onto the Northern extremity of these dunes which can be very interesting negotiating a way through... so far as to say we had 5 out of 8 vehicles bogged. Many pockets of soft powdery sand between the blowouts and a heap of razor backs, not very comfortable on the dunes either, the wind was unbearably strong  Only very, very experienced 4WDrivers should attempt negotiating such dunes and only with other vehicle support and with self-sufficiently in vehicle recovery equipment. Far too dangerous for a novice 4WDriver to be out there without that kind of support. Canteen members finding it hard to believe that the drivers were having so much fun bogging and recovering 4WD vehicles.

Once all vehicles were mobile again, I negotiated a way around the perimeter of the dunes with the convoy in toe and then headed straight to Wedge Island. Perfect timing for lunch right off the point at Wedge. The onshore wind was a bit excessive and unpleasant, but didn't matter where you were on the coast, you were going to get blown away.

We planned to park the vehicles for at least an hour for lunch right on the point, but the time was extended significantly due to an accident involving a kit beach buggy and the driver rolling it and breaking his arm about 300m from where we were parked up for lunch. Dr Will, the Canteen Doctor had no choice but to assist this accident as there was an injured person and he is legally bound to assist the injured. We had no choice but to stay where we were till Dr Will returned to the Canteen group as a Canteen recreational activity cannot function without qualified medical personal present. For the people that do decide to travel these areas North of our metropolitan area, medical assistance is still a long way away, further than most people would ever imagine. I understand that the dude that broke his arm may we have lost his arm if Dr Will was not there on the scene to assist. The broken arm break was centred between the left shoulder and the elbow, the break had cut off his circulation and unless freed up and circulation started again he may well have lost his whole arm.

So many times I have travelled these area's and so many times I see and hear these kinds of accidents. It is dangerous out there, so if people are going to extend their own duty of care to the ridiculous, please adopt an appropriate mindset and assess the risks before doing anything and then make arrangements so that medical assistance can be effective.

We lost another hour and a half with Dr Will dealing with the injured and arranging a medi-vac via a helicopter from Perth as the person injured really could not be moved via 4WD vehicle with the circulation issue. Dr. Will arrived back at the Point whereby he explained what was going on, we then moved the convoy to the Silver Chain posting in at Wedge Island township and waited till the Helicopter arrived before moving on.

Once we got the all clear from Dr Will, we were on our way again 4WDing. I had a request for more dunes and beach driving and the day was pressing on. We had a schedule to arrive back in Lancelin at 4.30pm and at this point in time, it certainly was not looking good for an ETA Lancelin at that time, it was 2.30pm already. By the way the tide was, it didn't look over promising for a run down the beach via Narrow Neck and Dide Bay. Having said that, the tide was moving out, so the longer we left the trip back, the better chance we had of getting back along the beach. But just in case we didn't, a beach run was requested and the only beach available to us at the time was North of Wedge Island to the Northerly most point at the Rocky outcrop.

The convoy was again heading North up the beach, on the way we came across three para-surfers, absolutely amazing to watch as we drove past them. These guys were very good! On our return I got a request to stop and watch them for a bit, Fish taking some video footage of them too. On our way back we dropped into the dunes just North of Wedge Island. These dunes are notoriously dangerous and getting a 4WD vehicle bogged up there is inevitable. At one point in time, nearly all of the eight 4WD vehicles were bogged in very fine powdery aerated sand. One of the canteen members was actually making a count of the total amount of boggings for the weekend, I believe the grand total was 15. Not a bad weekends effort ;-)

Even on the beach, other 4WDriver were getting bogged, we came across a Silver Prado and a Subaru and offering to help both. Only the Subaru accepted our help, three of them no older than 12 years old.

On returning to Wedge Island there was a group discussion on which way to head into Lancelin from Wedge Island. The tide had dropped but to my way of thinking, not enough to get a clear run all the way back to Lancelin. The only other option was Beacon Rd which if that route was taken... would have incurred a 6.30pm ETA back at the Lancelin Lodge, not good. And I did not feel much feel like taking the Thong Fence track, all shaken and a little stirred if you get my drift.

It was decided to head around the first Rocky outcrop South from Wedge Island and see how much beach we had to work with.

The beach drive back to Lancelin is by far the quickest way back, saving up to at least an hour of travel time. The only stop was half way back with one of the Canteen members experiencing a little motion sickness in Braveheart's 80' Series Land Cruiser. At this point we had some foreigners from say Sweden pull into our convoy, but they were kind enough to talk to us first, they were doing pretty good keeping up too! The position of the convoy changed at this point as I lost the lead.

We finally got to Narrow Neck and it required us to obey the 1st and 2nd rules of 4WDing. Once a decision was made and a method of getting all vehicles through, on we went. A nice four wheel slide by me and a better one by Fishy. Just awesome to watch Fish from the rear view mirror as he put the Prado into the sideways drift, just fantastic. Macca and Pluto taking the easy options timing the waves on the lower section of the beach, must be a Nissan thing taking the easy option ;-). Fortunately for the Nissan's, the lower side of the beach was relatively hard under foot, this is not generally the case. Always better to travel up against the dunes, but when the track runs out up against the dunes then go think, assess and make a decision what to do. Two methods we sourced and both worked perfectly, onya fella's.

The last couple of bays into Lancelin was shockingly boggy. Macca overshot the turn and almost went down like a 25kg lead sinker off the continental shelf. The Patrol working its ring off in a big black plume of carbon trying to get out of a sad situation. But alas, MacGyver's superb manoeuvring with the GU Patrol's 2.8L intercooled turbo almost redlining was indeed successful, no vehicle recovery or should I say... 'Nissan Recovery Vehicle' required.

One last short leg back into Lancelin behind the dunes with an awesome ETA at the Lodge of 4.45pm, and only 15 minutes late from actual planned ETA too, amazing if I might say so myself, well done to all the drivers ;-) All back safe and sound.

Unloaded the support vehicles at the Lodge and then all the drivers headed back to base camp at Robbo's joint to settle in for the evening.

We had just enough light left in the day to take a look at my UHF radio's microphone that was playing up all day. Pluto to the rescue whom had one of those gas fired soldering kits. Pluto quickly nailed down the cause of the problem and resoldered all the connections to the microphone with a little help from the Frogmeister.

The problem was with the earth wire in the cable to the Microphone. The earth was an open wire not protected by plastic coating. This must be a common fault with many radio's as on further investigation, it looked like the wire had just been worn through from continual use and the break was up against the microphone end in the cable itself where the cable is bent by continual use. 

Many of the drivers had fine sand from posterior's to breakfast, in vehicles and on persons. I gave the mighty 60' a bit of a clean out and emptied it to set up my bed in the back of the truck for the evening. We all cooked up a storm on the BBQ. Others did the same but got a nice warm shower in as well. We all settled in, had a bit of a chat, looked at the days photo's on the lap tops and downloaded the tracks we travelled on from the GPS units. Then it was upstairs for a viewing of T3 on DVD.

Braveheart was the first to fall asleep and accidentally grabbing anyone's pillow in the dark, bugger me he must have been knackered, trouble was... the anyone's pillow was mine, oh well... ya get that. Managed to find another one, no problem. Didn't want to wake the Scotsman and disturb his go-go mobile dream ;-)

It was a great evening... a real boys evening, great company too! Just the best ;-)

A late start to the morning as we were not expected back at the Lodge till 10.45am to pick up the Canteen members. Plenty of time to take it easy at Robbo's joint and just about everyone  started the day with a cooked breakfast. We packed the bare minimum and some West Coaster's airing down in anticipation for a drive through the Lancelin dunes after dropping off the members for a ride on Desert Storm, the big yellow American school bus 4X4. Though it was decided that we only had enough time to get back to Robbo's joint to pack and clean up and get back in time to pick up the members after the ride on the 4X4 bus. Canteen changed their plans a little and had already packed their gear up early that morning. It seems that they wanted to do some more 4WDing with us and wanted to get back off the road ASAP - after lunch.

After packing and cleaning up Robbo's joint, we picked up the members back at the dunes and transported them to the Lancelin Cafe. Drivers went back to the Bakery for lunch and we were called back via CDMA mobile phone when Canteen had finished lunch.

There was a small delay on leaving Lancelin and we lost the Canteen vehicle - Prado. Apparently having to make an emergency dash back to Perth.

On departure - Lancelin, we were about 40 minutes behind schedule. Moore River detour was still on the cards, though it was going to be pretty much a drive through with little time to stop at taking in the surroundings. Fortunately in terms of timing, the River was not a real challenge as its depth was only ankle deep. Only did one hill descent - not enough time for some of us to do an ascent to the top of the same hill. Had to give 'Yella Hill' a miss too! Taking a short cut on the other side of Bennies Rd to pick up some time.

The track out was pretty easy to follow, picking up all the turns from the GPS and regrouping at the Seabird turn off. A quick toilet stop for the members and free wheeling hubs unlocked. We were back on the highway heading for Nedlands in no time at all.

Canteen members went about calling their parents letting them know that we were about an hour behind ETA at Nedlands - Canteen. And incidentally, this year was the earliest a convoy of 4WDrivers had arrived back in Nedlands, and that would be a reflection of the high standard of the West Coast drivers 4WD abilities that took part in this fantastic event. The guys certainly made my job up front really very easy leading which I am absolutely eternally grateful for.

It was a fantastic weekend, enjoyed by almost 40 Canteen members and West Coast 4X4 (Inc) 4WD Club members. West Coast has been asked by Canteen to handle next year's 4WD activity for Canteen, but this time further up the Coast to Gray.

Many thanks to everyone that took part in the weekends activities and speaking for myself, I'll be looking forward to next years <2005> Canteen 4WD trip of which the drivers Itinerary has already been set, pending a bit of flexibility with Canteen's Itinerary of course ;-)

All the best everyone ;-) And remember - keep getting that gear off - ROAD!

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