The Shore Safari is an annual event organised by the Shore 4-Wheelers, a 4WD club from Auckland's North Shore.

The 98 event was a blast, in November 99 I signed up for the 99 event. The day started early - check in is at 7am, for a hearty breakfast at Mikes barn in Dairy Flat. 106 vehicles turned up, and after scrutineering (including Red or Green ratings) vehicles were let of on the course with an instruction sheet. I got a Red sticker.

The weather had been atrocious the week before and things were soggy. The first section - a paper road - had quite a few recoveries going on, the strange thing about this event is the way the participants interact. Little groups help those within their group, some random individuals just try to do everything solo and when they get stuck get a bit sulky. (Isuzu Mu drivers ring a bell?). Why not help other people and thank people that help you? One driver I know helped one particular idiot a number of times. After being not thanked at all (in fact when they got stuck they even refused to get out of the vehicle!) he couldn't wait to leave them behind.

The next paper road was a roadblock - vehicles queued up for 40 minutes until the entire tailed turned around and went around via the road. After another paper road we were into a farm. The Red track had claimed the first few vehicles down it, which were driving around the bottom trying to get out. Attention turned to another ridge leading down into a valley with steep climb out the other side. Two vehicles were trying and failing to climb out the other side. I stopped to watch. A queue headed down into the valley. Given that no-one had got out yet I thought that was a bit foolish. The grass was wet and very slippery. On the way down the valley there was a "crunch" that had me wincing. Mike had run his Range Rover into the back of a Jeep. Ouch.

Eventually, a few vehicles made it up the far side of the valley. The rest did an about face and came back - up a long ridge with wet grass and steep drop-offs on both sides. The bad driving (especially failed hill-climbs) was frightening to watch. I was seriously worried about rollovers. Howard in his 1950-something Series I went to the top of the ridge and hauled people up. At one point he had two vehicles in tow behind him. Not bad for a 1600cc antique!

Then we we off again. John pushed his 110 into a bank, damaging his bumper and front left panel. We found our own way to the next track into Riverhead. We did a green track but I was bored and Howard followed me down a red track - the Taeda track which we had both done before. This time it was different. The large trucks (typically 'Cruisers with Chev. V8s and 35" tyres) had dug huge ruts. The Series I was dragging it's diffs and getting stuck, despite Howard picking the best lines and doing an amazing job of driving. He gets far far further than most trucks. We hooked up a strop and I started to just tow him through everything. Sometimes the added load would be too much. Generally he could then reverse and pull me out backwards and then we could keep going.

As we got further through the track the ruts got deeper. In places they were over hip-high. The clay was exceptionally greasy - it was difficult to stand. As I dragged the Series I, he bounced out of the ruts and across the track, his left wheels riding up the bank. He was on the point of tipping over when I stopped. What could we do? I couldn't go backwards around him. We tried using his winch. The mud build-up from being towed had broken the winch. We had to wait and get someone to come down and pull him backwards. Thanks Evan in the Strange Rover.

We carried on. Once I had to winch myself up a bank and then haul Howard up. Eventually we got out. There were still 20 vehicles back somewhere in the forest behind us! Overall I was not too impressed with the attitude of some of the participants, and I think the organisers had underestimated the difficulty in the wet conditions, especially for inexperienced drivers. Maybe scrutineering should have been a bit tighter? A number of times I helped people that were badly out of their depth, or poorly equipped. Maybe the organisers were just caught out by the amount of rain - on the other hand I met one of the organisers who said they were struggling to get through on the recce run - and they were in very serious machines. Anyway, I do not want to knock the event, I had a great time, and it is very difficult to plan and co-ordinate such a good event for such a large number of people with different trucks and different abilities. I guess I'm used to smaller runs with people that look out for each other more.