Today I ended up driving where I shouldn't have, and while it turned out well, I thought the experience might be useful to the community. I also want to hear your own stories.

In addition, I've combined this with a mini-travelogue to set the scene.

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This weekend was the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, a gathering of traction engines and other old farming equipment. Having grown up on a farm in the midwestern USA, I fondly remembered similar events from my childhood.

In typical UK fashion, it rained. The forecast said it wouldn't be heavy, so I decided to go ahead with the trip. However, I should have looked at where the event was being held.

Arriving at the entrance, I was presented with the tunnel of trees (see above). The road was paved, but probably decades ago, and mostly encroached with vegetation and mud. However, the worst was yet to come. After the trees, the path turned off into a set of muddy ruts that led into a grassy field, parking for the event.

I rolled the window down and handed the exact change of my entrance fee to the ticket person without hardly coming to a complete stop, and steered past the ruts into the wider field. However, now I was faced with tall wet grass. Two guys were directing traffic and to my relief they parked me on top of a small mound. The grass was still taller than the lip of the bumper.



I thanked the parking guys for the help, observing that rolling downhill would make leaving easier, and that maybe driving this car today had been a bad idea.

"How many litres?" one asked.
"Five."
"Supercharged?"
"It's an R," his buddy pointed out.

Clearly they were patrons of the arts.

The rain started coming down harder and the two of them moved away. I sat in the car for a moment until the rain had slacked, and then headed into the event.

While I had come to see vintage steam equipment, I expected that there would also be other attractions. Sure enough, there were also old internal-combustion tractors, a small classic car show, draft horses, flywheel threshers, a Land Rover club that had set up an off road course, and even a Unimog club. I saw a rare Lanz hot bulb. In addition, there were plenty of vendors for food and crafts.

I stopped at a food truck that was selling six donuts for £5. They had a machine to make them right in front of you. This is a similar one, and I thought the mechanical process fit in great with the theme of the event. Better yet, the fresh hot donuts were amazing and it was a real challenge not eating them all and saving a few for the family.

When the rain picked up again, I went into a tent with craft booths. A guy was selling handmade wooden toys for reasonable prices. I have a young son, so I thought I should get him a tractor. I chose the red one.

Despite all the things to see, to my disappointment, there weren't more than a handful of actual steam tractors. Maybe the rainy forecast had kept them away. Still, I saw a few miniature ones being driven around.


Here's a guy living his best life.
Note the Land Rovers, tractors, and horses in the background.

After walking around and seeing everything, I headed back for the parking lot. It was still raining and I was grateful I had worn my old shoes today, though I spread the muck to my car when I got in.

Driving for the exit, I tried to pick a route that was as level as possible across the rolling field. The parking guys from earlier saw me and waved. The exit was narrow and the grass was tall enough to fool the car's parking sensors. I heard some rubbing on the bellypan.



Back on pavement, I took stock and headed for home. When I arrived after twenty miles on the highway, the tires had cleaned themselves, but there was still grass and mud stuck to things. A glance underneath showed nothing dragging, however.

So this brings us to the lessons learned. Having grown up on a farm, I already knew most of this, but learning is nothing if not repetition. Some of it is common sense, but I recognize that life still throws curves.

1) Driving on grass and mud is a lot like driving in snow: use your momentum and take it easy. Don't stop if you don't have to. Don't use any throttle and just let the automatic transmission creep along. Pretend you're trying not to break an eggshell between your foot and the pedals.

2) If you have to park, try to pick the best possible spot. Don't stop in mud holes or at the bottom of hills.

3) Driving like this will probably be an unplanned event, but if you are fortunate enough to prepare ahead of time, use your resources to get an idea what you will be facing: satellite pictures, etc. Also remember to bring something to clean your shoes, or at least have a good set of footwell liners. Remind your significant other to mind their feet, because guaranteed they don't care nearly as much about getting mud in your car as you do.

4) Lastly...don't wash your car the day before you go mudding

 

Drive 'em... enjoy 'em, don't park 'em! What's a little mud??
I quite like driving on gravel and also in inclement weather... separates the men from the boys.
Cheers!

 

I had a similar experience this year in Florida. Took my 75 year old father to a LIV Golf event outside of Orlando. Thought it would be fun to take the XK. I arrived at what was advertised as a paved parking lot to an overgrown grass cow pasture with sandy rutted lanes and invisible pot holes that could have swallowed a tire. Once I entered, there was no turning back. I drove the like Equatorial describes. Foot off the gas pedal and let the transmission do the work. Initiated "winter mode". Stayed away from visible sand ruts and little valleys within the pathway. Almost got stuck 3 times with a bit more tire spin than I would have liked. The parking attendants finally directed me to a grassy parking area with cut / dried grass that was so high it rose well into the car's undercarriage. After a 1.5 hour drive at elevated speeds, I felt if I left her parked there, I would come back to a car fire. We moved to a safer parking spot and proceeded to enjoy our day at a great event. Lesson learned...take the SUV to all future events. I did receive a lot of compliments from the parking attendants. Maybe because, they were thinking, "What's this idiot doing driving through this field".

 

good notes

 

For any event in England that includes the word "RALLY" in the description, take a pair of wellingtons, an umbrella and an alternative JLR model.





Graham