Being given somebody else’s expensive 4X4 to play with is a bit like winning a mid-winter week-long holiday in the Berg and then finding that the beautiful roommate you’ve been allocated is your best friend’s wife. The specifications look great, you know the equipment’s all there, and unscrupulous friends have assured you that your partner’s a willing performer, but you feel uneasy about brazenly returning spoilt goods at the end of your innings.
So you forego the acid test and settle for some mild flirting, perhaps followed by a bit of light-hearted four-by-fourplay, then spend the rest of your life wondering just how good it would have been if you weren’t such a wussie.
But the guys at Toyota South Africa seem to be a brazenly voyeuristic bunch, because the time a group of motoring journalists spent with their latest Land Cruiser range near Pretoria turned into a real no-holds barred affair. The more we pushed our luck with the loves of their lives the more the blighters seemed to enjoy watching. Our trip kicked off with a very restrained introductory phase – driving the entire range of Land Cruiser 100 series wagons and Prados on tar from Johannesburg International Airport to our overnight stop at Zebra Country Lodge near Nylstroom.
Given the fun-loving nature of the beasts off-road I’d have preferred not to have ventured within a kilometre of tarmac in the off-roaders, so when we turned off into the Serendipity 4X4 trail for lunch my day instantly brightened. After a delicious meal we spent the rest of the afternoon following some lovely but unchallenging – in these vehicles – tracks through the wilderness. Rocky river beds, wooded glades, soft sand and rutted tracks were much more fun than tar roads could ever be. Relaxing, but – ho hum. Nothing but a mild flirtation before dinner and an early night.
The next morning we set off bright and early for the McCarthy 4X4 Off-Road Track. That was when things started getting serious, as they had for the Boer nation right there just over 100 years before in June 1900, when the Battle of Diamond Hill signalled a change in the way that the Boer War would in future be conducted. When Field Marshal Lord Roberts marched unopposed into a virtually abandoned Pretoria with his troops six days earlier he reckoned the war was just about over, and sat back waiting for the Boer generals to start negotiating terms of surrender.
Five days later, with the revitalised enemy attacking supply lines across the country he realised that this wasn’t going to happen, so he sent his army out to remind the Boers that they’d lost. During the ensuing two day battle at the place the Boers called Donkerhoek and the British Diamond Hill his men received a monumental blood nose. The British lost 180 men, while the Boers escaped with a handful of minor injuries. Realising that a guerrilla war was going to be hard to win, a disappointed and disillusioned Roberts swiftly issued the orders that made him the most hated man in the country. In future, farms in the vicinity of Boer raids were to be burnt, and as a humanitarian measure the displaced women and children who ‘d lived there would be moved to concentration camps. Under the circumstances his actions were reasonable, but back in Europe a small man with a funny moustache later adapted them for more sinister purposes .
The 4X4 trail we followed over Diamond Hill is a demanding one. Narrow rutted tracks lead up, down and across the slopes, and massive rocks lining the sides leave very little room to manoeuvre around the dongas and boulders that lurk like enemy troops in ambush. Left to our own devices most of the journalists driving the vehicles would have backed off rather than risk getting stuck or damaging the vehicles, but with Toyota’s staff having run the gauntlet the previous week we all knew the vehicles could cope with the terrain. Besides, the Toyota Terrorists were egging us on. Two hours later we reached the end of the trail, having wended our way past the long abandoned Boer fortifications over some of the most daunting terrain I’ve ever experienced in a luxury 4X4. Mission accomplished.
There were a couple of dented running boards to be seen, but we knew the Toyotas could get places off-road that most sane owners would never attempt to venture. After our off-road adventure we headed back for the airport, with my attitude towards tar somewhat revised – suddenly I loved the stuff. Barrelling along at the wheel of the superb 173 kW Land Cruiser V8 it suddenly struck me that less than an hour after a hair-raising descent down a treacherous rocky mountain trail and 30 seconds after leaving the dirt I was cruising at an effortless 160 km/hr in the exact same air-conditioned luxury wagon, with plenty more power in hand.
Life was great. Best of all, I knew just how good it can be to go all the way when a great opportunity comes along. And I hadn’t upset my friends or my wife.