If a Land Rover rumbles it's engine in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it still make a noise?

On Sunday we finally did something we'd been talking about for a long time - we took a group of 15 Land Rovers on a meet and drive into the Otway National Park. Ah, the powers of social media! Between Instagram and Facebook, we'd gathered around 40 people in the area that owned these cars, and about half of these could make it for a drive. Although we woke up to pouring rain, we knew the Otways, as everyone affectionately calls it, would be magnificent. And it was - so much so that we had to keep stopping for photos.

We took a fairly easy route, nothing too tricky, as there were some inexperienced drivers amongst us and people a little reluctant to do anything hard core. Still, every one loved it - the forest was particularly magical in the fog. The tree ferns hung heavy with water, mushrooms nodded at us as we passed, and fat drops of rain hit the windscreen.

This is Chris and Kelly's 6x6 Perentie - they've done it up as a pretty cool camper.

I love this shot of our mate Murray's 110 County with the misty forest as backdrop. He's the guy we get a lot of our accessories from and is a great guy to know.

Shannon and Ashleigh had a 130 like us, and a Series 3 at home just like us. We'd both opted for the warmer, drier and more comfortable car for this weather! Both were originally from Zimbabwe, and Ashleigh's Dad is a tour guide there and has heaps of Landies too.

Clearly, some people are just brainwashed by their families to love Land Rovers, like this little guy in his Dad's short wheel base.

There was also a couple of Discoverys. We are after a Discovery 2 TD5 - one day! And a lovely 2A military (the Land Rovers were numbered Series 1, in 1948, followed by the next model which was 2, then 2a, then 3, then the Stage 1 Defender, and so on.)

We had lunch in Forrest (great name for a town in the forest, right?) and stood round talking for a while. After that we decided to do a medium track, the Neck Track. It was quite muddy and slidey which was fun, and challenging and exciting enough for a few of the newbies there. It was quite easy for our Defender but we didn't really want to be doing any recovery as it was getting quite late in the day! Our mate Mic was happy to get his little Defender 90 muddy, which we teased him about. In fact, we all got a wee bit muddy, which is the sign of a good day out in the forest, right?

The army perenties were popular - we had four on the trip. They've got quite trendy of late and a good one will cost you $30K. Covid inflation.

Then it was time for home - Wally would definitely need a jet wash. We felt really happy we'd given everyone a good day out and plan to do it again soon. One thing we've realised about life is that you can't wait around for other people to organise stuff and if you do it, people will come and be super happy about it.

With Love,

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