The Land Rover G4 Challenge event at Eastnor in Herefordshire is not for the faint-hearted. Paul Cullen volunteered to join a tasting group
It's an odd experience, facing vertically downwards in a motor vehicle. Brown earth and grey puddles fill the windscreen, while the rear mirror looks back on clear blue sky.
I should be scared, all the more so as I've never driven an automatic before. Just an hour earlier, as I took the wheel of this Land Rover Discovery, the lack of a stick-shift gave me palpitations, and yet here I am descending a vertical slope without a care in the world.
In truth, the car is doing the driving. My feet are off the pedals and my eyes are on the onboard computer. This tells me my wheels are correctly oriented and the vehicle is in steep descent mode. It's the landlubber's version of auto-pilot; heh, I could get used to this off-road driving malarkey.
Half an hour later, though, I'm paddling furiously around a small lake, looking for controls hidden in the shoreline rushes. Then to dry off, I'm handed a bright orange mountain-bike and told to speed around a circuit in the nearby forest as fast as my legs can carry me. When I've been physically tired out, someone gives me a few problem-solving exercises to make sure my brain drains too.
What madness is this, some of you will ask. Well, pretty much my idea of heaven; an outdoors skills event held in perfect weather with everything laid on, down to the beer crates at the campsite. It's all part of a taster event for the media organised late last month by Land Rover to publicise its upcoming G4 Challenge.
Rather vaguely, the company tags the event as "the ultimate global challenge"; more precisely, the helpful PR executive tells me it's "a global multi-sport adventure competition with 4x4 driving at its core".
Competitors from 18 countries, including Ireland, are due to take part in next year's challenge, which starts from Bangkok and moves through rural Thailand and Laos before sweeping across the world for further stages in Brazil and Bolivia.
That's one hell of a four-week holiday - er, I mean challenge - designed to showcase Land Rover's Discovery and Sport models in spectacular but trying outdoor conditions. These days, the granddaddy of all SUVs (not a popular word in these parts, with so many pallid imitators selling at low prices) is trying to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional markets, and it sees bicycles and kayaks as key to doing this.
The company wouldn't be the first to try to capitalise on the positive imagery of the great outdoors but it at least it has some pedigree in this area.
Some of the competitors from the inaugural challenge, held in 2003, are on hand for our mini-event, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire near the English/Welsh border. A Belgian fighter pilot triumphed in that challenge and, as you'd expect, there are a lot of tall, tanned types with thrusting jaws and rippling muscles.
However, Kerryman Paul McCarthy, who came sixth in the 2003 event, is as laid back as you'd expect for someone who worked as a stonemason in the summer and spent the winters surfing off the North African coast and sleeping in his old Land Rover.
"It's not all about strength," he tells me. "You've got to be able to show initiative, think strategically and work in teams."
Back at Eastnor, I need to show initiative. I'm stuck in a rut - a rut as high as your knee. I rev the engine and hear its powerful purr - we're talking about fuel consumption of seven mpg in these conditions - and feel the vehicle climb out of the mud. Now my world has gone all sideways but my guardian angel from Land Rover assures me it can take a sideways tilt of up to 43 degrees, so we're ok.
This is Day 2 of the challenges and I'm beginning to get a hang of the off-road driving. I manage not to get lost in the forest for the first half of the navigation exercise and I hit only half the obstacles I'm supposed to avoid on these deeply rutted tracks. My co-driver is throwing up all morning but she assures me it's not my driving that's at fault.
I didn't win our little competition among 12 journalists (something to do with a snagged rope in the final event; you don't really want the full story). Next year's challenge, though, carries the prize of a Land Rover, so I might just keep up the training . . .SO, YOU FANCY YOUR CHANCES
Land Rover Ireland is looking for an Irish contestant to take part in next year's G4 Challenge.
The ideal person will combine physical strength with a capacity for quick thinking and ability to master off-road driving.
Potential challengers would also need to be free for the four weeks of the event, which starts in Bangkok on April 23 next and ends at over 4,000 metres on the last plains of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.
The deadline for applications for the Irish qualifier is September 30. National selection will then take place in October/November, with the leading male, leading female and the next highest-placed competitor of either gender being selected to take place in international selections. These are scheduled to take place at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire in January/February 2006, with one competitor from each of the 16 countries going forward to the global challenge.
You must be over 21-years-old and have been driving for at least two years.
