Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Five

It’s day five of our epic nine-day road trip, and Overland Expo 2012 officially launches at 0800 with opening remarks and introductions by Her Supreme Overland Highness, Roseanne Hanson. The morning crowd sitting on the bleachers by the moto track laughs when she says that Jonathan is filming this opening session, and also posing at the same time.

With the event now in full swing, I now need to pay attention to my course schedule. I avoided signing up for a 9am class so I could finish waking up & getting my things together, as well as make my first pass through the vendor/exhibitor areas. It’s a blur of activity and after a slow day yesterday my camera is now getting a real workout.

At 1000 I have my first course on Vehicle Maintenance, as taught by the Land Rover Camel Trophy crew. CT legends Duncan Barbour & Andrew Dacey led the informative class. I attempted to avoid taking notes by recording some of the class with my voice recorder, but I knew the results would be questionable as the wind had returned with a vengeance. The instructors really had to raise their voices to be heard.

At the end of the class a Defender 110 was tilted sideways by winch and controlled via lines on the opposite side, allowing easier access to the underside for field repairs. The class was informative and I also came away appreciating the no-nonsense, let’s-get-it-done approach from the instructors. It was clear they’d had a lot of experience & didn’t think twice about diving in and getting their hands dirty.

Next up for me was the Land Rover Experience driving course. Having plenty of offroad seat time in my Land Cruiser over the past week, I jumped at the chance to drive a Range Rover around the course. Anthony was also on hand for the same drive, so we also got to experience the course from the back seat as the other drove. The course was a lot of fun. Getting a ton of air under the left-front wheel at the end of the course was a highlight for me, as was getting to experience Land Rover’s famous and impressive Hill Descent mode.

After lunch and more browsing of the exhibitor area, I was scheduled for two longer (two-hour) classes that would take up the rest of my afternoon.

First up was Advanced Tire Repair taught by Martyn Davies of Adventure Trailers. This was an excellent class and I took a lot of notes, and came to realize that my existing tire repair kid was in need of a major upgrade. Really, I was equipped for simple punctures only, and I wanted to be able to deal with more than that if I had to.

Martyn gave a very hands-on demo of puncture and sidewall cut repairs, including patching and stitching. He fielded a lot of questions and was able to relate his own extensive experience, and he did it all with humility and humor. If you get a chance to take this class, I highly recommend it. AT also hosts several tire repair videos on their website.

Speaking of the AT website, after returning home from this trip I purchased AT’s impressive (and expensive) Ultimate Puncture Repair Kit. Look for a review in the near future.

Wrapping up my courses for the day was Advanced Recovery Scenarios: Single Vehicle. Despite the word “Advanced” being in the title, I would personally have categorized it as an introductory-level offering. Like every other short vehicle recovery class I have taken, most of the time was spent covering the basics of recovery gear and techniques.

Despite the mismatch with my expectation for the class, there was a lot of solid information presented, even if the majority of it was refresher material for me. I did get to see a ground anchor in use firsthand, which I’d never had the chance to see before, and that was very educational.

After class wrapped up it was time to get some dinner – if we could find enough time between the frantic socializing! Everywhere we went there were people to say hi to, catch up with, meet for the first time, and gear and rigs to discuss! It was difficult to walk any distance without getting sidetracked, but we didn’t mind.

I think this was the night that J. Brandon cooked up his awesome chicken lemon stew for us at his campsite. If not it was the following night, whatever. It’s all a blur… But the soup was outstanding and again so was the company. We then made our way over to the Snow Peak booth where they were due to kick off their Friday night party.

When we arrived things hadn’t quite started so Anthony & I jumped in to help Zach from Overland Gourmet carry some of his supplies over from another campsite, where he’d just wrapped up a special meal for those folks. He immediately launched into cooking for the party crowd, and dished up some fantastic grilled sausages, and tomatoes and jalapeños cooked in flaming Jim Beam. Both were outstanding. Meanwhile, one of the Snow Peak guys weaved through the crowd pouring good sake… What a great combination!

There was also a Snow Peak raffle to add to the excitement, and a group of boisterous people was having a roaring time playing some sort of game at the big table at the Snow Peak tent. It was a heck of a party and I had a great time chatting with several people who I’d met while there. It was a brilliant time.

Early on Bryon – who had arrived at the Expo with a much lighter wallet but also a properly-functioning Sportsmobile – was starting to feel burned out, and so had turned in to work on some posts for his website. Now after a couple of hours of partying, Anthony and I were both starting to succumb as well. We made our goodbyes and returned to camp to crash in our respective tents.

The punishing winds kept up for much of the night, causing some minor grief with the flap poles on Anthony’s RTT, and at times I could feel my ground tent trying to lift off on either side of me as I slept! Still, I was tired enough that it didn’t bother me, I’d just drop right back to sleep. Tomorrow would be another long, busy, and fun day.

• Day Five Miles: 0
• Day Five Miles offroad: 0
• Trip Miles: 1,007
• Trip Miles offroad: 163.8
• Days without a shower: 5 (toxic)

Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Five photo gallery