So, I did make a meme.
And the ink wasn’t dry on the upload and people started asking me “SO, who made you the expert?” And the answer is “No one”, and that’s because I don’t consider myself one. There are enough people out there claiming to be.
And I have never represented myself as one. I do know a thing or two about four-wheel driving, though.
Having been born in the early 1970’s, Mum tells the story that I was driving around the family farm, located about 90 minutes from my childhood home, at four years old. From seven, I was driving (supervised) on the beach on K’gari (Fraser Island). From 12, I was being sent the few (up to 5) kilometres along the beach to buy the bread, milk and paper from one of a few shops on the Island. At 15, I’d be allowed to take other kids with me. And by 16 1/2, I was driving the drunks home from New Years Day festivities on the Island. All while driving bigger and bigger implements and tractors, along with towing bigger and better trailers, on the farm.
I was also getting as much steering wheel time as I was allowed in the forestry and National Parks as I possibly could.
Somewhere in amongst that, somewhere in the early 1980’s, a mate of my father’s, a gentleman named Ivan, lived around the corner. He and his wife, Jan, had just left the Australian Army. He was a member of many of the four wheel drive clubs and had an active role in creating the Queensland Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs (QAFWDC), now trading as Four Wheel Drive Queensland (FWDQ). He and Jan were also instrumental, at the same time, in setting up the Australian National Four Wheel Drive Council, which was to become Four Wheel Drive Australia.
Ivan and Jan lived just around the corner from us.
This was the beginning of the “Sport” we know and love and four wheel drives weren’t as refined (read as, car like) as they are now. While they were prevalent in the country or on the mine site, they certainly weren’t as commonly available as they are today. And safety wasn’t a huge priority, either (Take me to a campfire, ply me with beer or bourbon, and I’ll tell you the story of our first trip to K’gari in 1979! I promise, it’ll be worth the cost of the beer/bourbon.)
We were making up the rules as we went along, recovering stuck vehicles with whatever rope (generally hemp “back in those days”), chain, or steel cable we could lay our hands on. Added to that was any dodgy method of attaching it to the vehicle, including over the tow ball.
Ivan looked on in amazement and had a conversation with my father about all the training and procedures they had in the army for driving their four wheel drives, both on and off road.
This lead to many afternoon of Ivan and Dad sitting around our kitchen table with Army handbook in one hand and loose sheets of typing paper in the other, making notes and changing things, where needed. Things like the Hill Stall Procedure were re-written, Convoy Procedure was “civilianised”, including opening and closing gates on all trips, not just those on private property. (Except “Gate Lollies”. Gate Lollies started with my family.)
During this time, in 1983, Dad accidentally “invented” the four wheel drive show. Despite what other YouTube four wheel drive experts will tell you. (They claim they did, but, anyway) It’s a long story and I’ll tell you when we sit down to a campfire, and over a beer or a bourbon. Suffice to say that the Four Wheel Drive Test Track was invented as a part of that day, and Dad and I would travel around the area shaping these out of piles of dirt. As hard as it was to gain the trust of the digger driver (I was 12-15, after all), Dad would just say, “This is as much his idea as mine,” and walk away.
I was 12, and of an afternoon, Ivan would phone around asking if Dad and I were there. Sometimes Dad wasn’t home from work yet, so Ivan would just come around with his car. The point was to teach me, at age 12, how to do these things. Ivan and Dad had discussed it and, if they could teach me, then it was understandable to a wide audience.
This body of work was taken to a representative group of the clubs and Ivan and Dad’s work was given to the them. Free licence was given to any club to change them to suit their own needs. The clubs were also encourage to start Driver Awareness or Driver Training programs within their clubs.
These documents were also taken the the then QAFWDC/FWDQ and Association-based Train the Trainer days were organised. They were also adopted by the ANFWDC/FWDA.
This work, through Ivan, was taken to the USA on a “recreation” trip that Jan and Ivan took. While in the USA, they met up with a group called Tread Lightly with the intention of spreading the word to clubs and four wheeling groups there. (As a side note, Tread Lightly Australia was brought back by Jan, and many organisations and clubs took it on board. Sadly, this has been let sink away, which is a shame, in my view.)
The work written by Ivan and Dad also form a very large part of the modern Four Wheel Drive course as a part of the Australian National Training Framework.
Now, things always change.
None of our men are ‘experts.’ We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the ‘expert’ state of mind a great number of things become impossible.”
― Henry Ford
Notes were made, things were changed, new inventions. Things like elasticized, kinetic tow ropes (snatch straps) were invented. Dynema Rope became a thing on winches instead of wire cables. Soft shackles. Roof top tents. Over the years, the sport has evolved and exploded as the very four wheel drive has been modified to suit a more suburban lifestyle.
You’d be forgiven for not keeping up. I have had to make a point to.
I seem to do alright off road. I have travelled a bit, like Cape York and across the Simpson Desert to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, Wurrtaka (Kings Canyon), the Finke Rover Gorge Track to Palm Cove, back around the Mereenie Loop.
I spent 6 months exploring the Atherton Tablelands while Mrs Middo worked. She was less than happy with this, and begged me not to drive down the “wrong track’ and happen across the business end of a rifle. Normally, it would be a local “grower”, protecting their crop. They were easy to manage but, thankfully, it only happened once.
In all my trips, I have driven from the most Northerly point on Mainland Australia to the most Southerly, and I’ve four wheel drove a lot of those places in between. One day, I might actually do that in one go but, for now, I have just linked all the trips I’ve done Up and Down the East Coast of Australia.
Then I was also a Tour Guide on K’gari (Fraser Island), and took countless numbers of tourists onto the beach to enjoy the majestic sand-based rainforest on K’gari, blending my skill of beach driving with my deep knowledge of the Island gained through yearly visits, plus a new respect with the information given to me by the Butchulla People, the traditional custodians.
Tour guiding also took me back to Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), where I hadn’t been since I was a child. It really is a mini-K’gari (without the Wongari (dingoes)). Mingerribah (North Stradbroke Island) is another shining gem in the crown of SE Queensland that I was fortunate enough to get paid to visit with people.
If I join a club, I sit quietly at their Driver Awareness/Orientation days, the smirk and my assessment of their performance are well and truly buried.
I’m not involved in Education and my voice was drowned out by a very large Automotive player trying to get out of their legal obligation, so I quietly sit on the sidelines and laugh. Sometimes to myself, and sometimes I share the joke.
Am I an expert, or the expert, though? No. That’s for the Youtube “Experts” and “Educators”. Not me.
And, if I’m at your window giving you instructions, you’re welcome to listen or tell me to bugger off. Admittedly, I don’t take much in life seriously, but there is a very short list of things I do: Coffee, Four Wheel Driving, Computing. End of list. ( and in no order, except maybe coffee. ). I don’t care either way. While I may know a thing or two, the choice is yours.