On the weekend of May 15 -16 Ali Kidd, Andrea Sluga and David O'Rourke completed the driving under operations 4WD course. On the Saturday morning we did classroom work learning the basics of how a 4WD vehicle works and how they differ a normal 2WD vehicle. After lunch we headed out into the car park to ESA Headquarters to learn how to do a pre-drive vehicle check and what equipment we would need to take out into the bush.

 

After this we then hit the streets of Curtin to learn how to drive with the storm trailer and also how to correctly reverse with a trailer attached.

 

Then on Sunday the fun really began with an 8am start at Kowen forest. We were taken to the top where we were shown how to do a stall recovery and a reverse stall recovery and how to correctly navigate up a hill. The instructors then handed the vehicles (RIV 60 Pajero, TUGG 60 V8 Troop Carrier, GUN 61 Hilux and MAJ 61 Hilux) over to the students and we began to learn how to drive them. We took the vehicles through their paces up and down dirt hills and through a river crossing before having lunch then learning how to use a winch, tirfor and a snatch strap.

 

All in all it was a very good course and we all came away with a good knowledge of how to drive a 4WD.