4WD ACTION MAGAZINE DRIVE

Coffs Harbour has the Big Banana, pristine rainforests, beautiful clean beaches and it is also where the Great Dividing Range meets the sea. Because of this meeting place it creates some amazing 4wding, in fact some of the toughest in Australia is located around the Coffs hinterland. I had the opportunity to host a national 4wd magazine for a 5 day period in March. The plan was to bring together 6 4x4s that they would feature in an upcoming magazine, shoot some action shots on extreme tracks, camp out, do some bush cooking and top up their file photos ( and I got to test BCF’s new 4wd recovery gear- XTM, ask me what I really think of this gear after some of it failed, not good ). After a meet and greet early Monday morning we tested the trucks with their departure and approach angles before heading out to our first campsite. 

We finally hit the tracks just 5 km from our base, these boys (as far away as Mackay and Sydney) were in offroad heaven. Spending the day tackling hills around our highest peak, (Mount Coramba), it definatly was hard work. Winching at the first hill, road building and more, it was on for young and old. The camera crew got some great shots before heading back to camp. Day 2 was the same agenda but another area. More winching, photos, testing these trucks to the limits and some minor damage. Day 3 was another full on day, these boys wanted extreme, so that’s what they got. 

Track names like ‘’widow maker’’, ‘’broken’’, ‘’perseverance’’, ‘’commando’’ and ‘’hard powerlines, you can only imagine just what these tracks are really like. The 4wds that were here for the comparison shoot were extreme 4wds- all had lockers, winches, big lifts and the drivers were very experienced. The last two days were all about how they tackled sedate tracks, public roads and how they handled on the sand. 

The last night consisted of a campsite photo shoot as we cooked a variety of dishes using camp ovens. Pork, veges, top it off with several Danishes, we had a feast at Pebbly Beach. It had been a great 5 days, with 4wdAction Magazine defiantly keen to come back for more extreme testing. My highlights were seeing how other 4wd’s perform with different suspension setups, tyres, driver ability and picking hints up off the professional crew form the magazine. The general consensus was that Coffs is 4wd megaspot !!