Endeavour One Day Challenge – 1st charity bash

Headed to Woodenbong for an Endeavour One Day Charity Rally. Our first taste of the whole process and a chance to meet a few people, see some of the other cars and just learn a little more.

After a few weeks of prep getting the new prop shaft and rear axles and bearings all done (see my next post for a bit of the prep work dramas), we packed up for the trip which is about 4 1/2 hours from home.

After and early start from our over night camp with friends near Tenterfield, we headed to get to Woodenbong before the driver briefing at 9:40am. We made it with about 15 mins to spare. Lovely area up in the hills. Yowie country as the locals all promote, so plenty of rugged hills and tracks to explore.

We weren’t the only “newbies” on the day, but we were the oldest 4wd in our class. We set off in about 8th place on the road out of 50 cars, mostly on the rally. Although we were very “Plain Jayne” with no livery, our loud V8 fitted in perfectly.

The first few km took us some time to work out the navigation notes, which was a bit nerve racking, especially with our next competitor catching us quickly and asking to get past. But we soon settled into a pattern — We really need a rally nav distance and timing device though! The old trip meter in the Landy played up through the day so there was a bit of guestimating for the km points.

The day progressed with some adventurous tracks through the State Forests and National Parks. Some very slippery sections and the not so responsive steering added to the challenge (note to self…look at improvements to steering). After the allterain tyres filled up with sticky red mud, it even got a little more fun. By the lunch stop we had a good bottom to top covering of mud.

At the end of a tiring day we returned to the show-grounds for dinner by the local Progress Association, presentations and a raffle. The fund raising was going half to Endeavour and half to the locals to install a disabled access ramp at the local golf club. By the end of the night they had enough funds for this to happen.

Also by the end of the presentation we were the lucy winners of class D – 4WDs for the day. Not bad for a first outing. No car or navigation dramas and a little surprise at the presentation.