It was a seriously mixed up weekend out in the Victorian bush
south of Jamieson this weekend.
We did a couple of drives, Saturday in heavy rain then
Sunday I led a group of 10 cars for a drive in brillant sunshine.
(Some were club members, others weren't - so for the point of this post
I assuming no club members, sort of like the recent Pyrennies
Exploroz drive we attended).
A number of little minor things came up which had us asking
about potential liability of giving advice.
I never worry about this stuff much and just let everyone know
I'm off and they can tag along if they wish and then
sort out who is Tail end charlie and the vehicle count etc over the radio
as we go.
Following cars sink or swim depending on ability, but at least we are around
for rescues, and this process guarantees plenty of later fireside chat.
The radio communications wasn't helped because one solo driver was deaf.
(Perhaps we should have insisted he had a hearing passenger?)
This made it interesting because when we came to a
river crossing
it was a little deep with a dangerous shelf off to one side.
A Terracan driver wisely decided to turn around, but a jeep wrangler
worried me cause I think there intake is a little low (I think).
On the trip during the rain an 80 series wouldn't drive thru until
I stripped down and hobbled thru the river mapping the underlying rock shelf,
and didn't quite aviod a serious wet cold shock where it wasn't needed.
The
river crossing seemed ok to me, but was a little touchy for some others
but all made it ok.
We also had comms issues as UHF doesn't go far in the Vic hills, so I put
the only other VKS equipped car at the rear, however I couldn't effectively
communicate rocks on track etc and other stuff throughout the spaced out group.