Thread: Interesting Afternoon Outing

Got a phone call this afternoon from my young bloke - "can you drive your Disco out to the West Lakes - and bring a snatch strap".

Well, I knew that he had borrowed my trailer and taken his dirt bike out to the salt lakes west of Kal behind his work ute (79 Cruiser), so was guessing at what had happened. I took my tow hitch off and fitted the recovery hitch, threw a shovel in the back and made sure that I had what gear I might need on board, and set off out to where he had agreed to ride out to meet me.

We met not far out of town (he on his bike) and I followed him over a few dirt roads and tracks for about 20km to one of a chain of salt lakes / mudpans in the area - and found this ......................





Apparently some other friends of his had got to the lake before him, and they decided to "do a few donuts" on the lake in the little Mazda. It sunk.

Shaun attempted to do the right think, unhooked the trailer and reversed his ute out onto the lake to recover the Mazda - all was apparently going well while he had a bit of speed up, but as soon as he started to slow down, the wheels on the Toymota started to sink down into the surface, and when he stopped, the rear end broke through completely and sank. At least he had the sense not to spin the wheels and attempt to drive it out - would have been very messy and quite a long way from hard ground.

I walked out there and had a look - was pretty soft and spongy in spots, and also very greasy on the surface. A bit of shovelling in front of the wheels of both stuck vehicles was done - then I let the tyres down to about 15 psi on the Disco and also on the Toymota, reversed the Disco out very slowly with my head hanging out the door watching what my tyres were doing. It felt a bit like driving on a waterbed in places, but the surface held and we were able to get a snatch strap on and get both stuck vehicles out. First gear low and the Disco spinning all four wheels virtually until I got out onto hard ground - but the job was done. Another Toymota (and a little toy Mazda) pulled out of the poo.

I guess they won't try that again in the Mazda in a hurry.

Airing up after it was all over.



I suppose to be fair to the young bloke - there is a fair bit of weight on the back of that Toymota - it has an upgraded heavy duty spring pack, and it's flat.

But the Disco actually surprised me and did it easier than I thought - and that's on a set of Highway tyres.

Originally Posted by chris_mack

no photos pulling them out though!

With me in the Disco and the young bloke in the Toyota, there really wasn't anyone else there I'd trust to be in reasonably close with a camera. As it was, they were questioning why I had deliberately laid out so much slack in the snatch strap instead of taking the tension up before attempting to tow him out.

I just asked them all to stand back well out of the way.