4×4 Off Roading in Wanganui – Day 58

Today we are doing a crazy offroading experience over the Wanganui Sand dunes.

This morning we wake up at the 42b college house hostel and we head straight away for the Wanganui sand dunes. We were scratching our heads with Laura on what what to do to explore the sand dunes in a very fun way. and how rough is it going to be? As rough as you want to make it or as smooth as you want to make it. then we heard about this crazy guy that has a 4×4 and goes nuts in the sand dunes so Laura and I just couldn’t resist. Believe it or not, Warwick is 70 years old and he still drives like a crazy man.

We’re jumping into the Can-Em 4×4 offroading truck with Warwick and we are heading for the sand dunes on the back of Wanganui South Beach and there are trails already been made in the sand dunes which go up and down. there’s flat sections sections with heaps of deep puddles. I’m having to lift my feet as not to get totally splashed by them and it’s just a crazy ride from the get go.

It’s really like being on a rollarcoaster on this 4×4 drive the sand dunes are going everywhere, up down and there are small bumps and huge bumps and Warwick is really not slowing down for any of them. He’s literally jumping over some of them at some point. It’s absolutely nuts. So we are pushed back left and right and we just trying to hang onto the truck and the cameras. It’s just really crazy.

The vehicle that we’re in right now is a Can-em 4×4 and Warwick used to race these professionally back in his hey day.

So Warwick stops us a few times to tell us about the fascinating history of the area including some head tradings that happened between the Maori tribes here and the European Settlers.

So Warwick took the time to ask us multiple times if we were ok with speed and if that was not a problem for him to actually kind of speed up right. And we told him that we are absolutely fine with it but you’d think that there’d be a few things like some massive drops or even a forest that would make him slow down. But no, he’s just keep on speeding through the sand dunes and we really get to see the entire coastline within this hour and a half that we spent with Warwick.

As we head toward the pine forest before making our way through it there is the sun beaming through the trees. I mean, it feels like nature has put on a show for us. There is those beautiful sand dunes with all those native grass and there is one forest right in the middle that we can just pass through and make our way and it just looks absolutely amazing and well, we get a little bit of time to embrace it but you know as mentioned Warwick just doesn’t slow down. He also really loves his truck. He knows a lot of tricks with it and he really like to take a lot of freedom with it and try a lot of things. so every single time he’s getting a chance, he’s going to go off road and do some kind of nuts stuff and well we are in the truck we are strapped in so we have to get along with it.

After a wee while, Warwick tells us that we are going to head to a much flatter section and to our surprise that’s literally right on the beach. Six months ago, that creek used to come out about 50 metres behind us now in the last 6 months its gradually moved down. What will happen is that there’ll be a big flood and it will break through again and it will happen again.

So for a while now, we have been doing heaps of obstacles over the sand dunes but now we have a flat section and beach ahead which means time to speed up. So we really so how fast this thing can go and we just absolutely speeding down this flat beach in Wanganui there’s all this driftwood along the side a lot of still a few obstacle s to get over with the driftwood but mainly this about speed. He’s even doing some donuts which is going round in circles and like drifting around in the sand flicking the sand up on the side it’s just we’re just having heaps of fun right now I am getting absolutely covered in sand.

Nice. Cool. Warwick is the coolest pensioner I know.

Alright so after spending what felt like an hour speeding on the beach it’s time for us to turn around and make our way back toward the town of Wanganui. Warwick gives us a bit of a choice he tells us that we can either head bck to wanganui through the beach or through the sand dune so we tell him that we really like both them so he’s kind of giving us half and half. So we’re speeding up along the beach for quite a wee while before hitting the sand dunes again the forest again and making our way toward Wanganui through a bit of a dirt road. It was an absolutely crazy way to explore the sand dunes of the area. There is heaps to see here and i feel like it would have taken us days to see that much.

Laura. What are you sitting on? Well there wasn’t any seats, there wasn’t any seats outside so I found this ladder. How comfortable are you? My ass is in tatters right now.