The weekend began in quite an amusing manner with a procession of competitors heading down the Motorway from Stockport, covering each other in a fine mist of oil (we are talking about Landrovers!) and taking it in turns to lead the way and keep a clear windscreen.

As we neared the site I found myself at the front of the line and although we had all been given thorough directions and were all experienced navigators?… when we got to the first junction that required a choice I went the right way and then watched in my van mirror as the convoy of Landrovers peeled off down the other slip road with my 90 at the rear (being the worst oil culprit) driven by Adam, my co-driver. So, the competition had already started, eh! I would show them who could navigate! After being at the campsite for about 10 minutes and after finishing a cold beer with those who had arrived the previous day, we heard some chatter over the CB's. It was the rest of the group. "The girl at the bus stop thinks it is behind us up the hill, we will have to turn round again" "But the guy in the white van said it was this way" By the time they had found the site I had claimed the last of the almost level spots for the van/holiday home and was reaching for my second beer. Let the duel begin. The next morning Jonathon gathered us round to brief us on the day's challenges and then sent us out on the navigation exercise which involved visiting nine places in turn after being given the grid reference at the previous point. Adam and I were going well until I decided to mark the next point on the map while Adam copied the identity marker to prove we had been there. I should have left the navigation to Adam, as this was where I made the mistake that probably cost us the trophy. In my haste I marked a point a whole kilometre south of where I should have been and this just happened to land us on another greenlane. By the time we realised and got to the correct point we had probably lost about 15-20 minutes and later this proved fatal. Once we had visited all nine points we still had time to spare and so we decided to go for a tenth bonus point that we were told about at the beginning of the day. I reckoned that we had just about enough time to get there and back provided we didn't struggle to find the marker when we got there. However, I hadn't reckoned on the bank holiday traffic and progress was painfully slow. We were stuck in a queue less than a mile from the bonus point when we had to make the decision to turn back. Coming back was just as bad if not worse and sitting behind a weekend driver doing 25-30mph in a 60mph zone while the clock was ticking was infuriating but despite this we only checked in a couple of minutes late but without the prized bonus points.

Over dinner the usual misinformation campaigns were starting with everyone saying that they had got all nine and the bonus point, drat and double drat! After dinner we were released into the off-road site to do the ever-popular punches. This involved finding 10 unique punches scattered around the site at awkward spots and then getting the vehicle close enough to clip a card attached to the passenger side mirror or grab handle. I think its safe to say we all love this part of the challenge and to make it more interesting we could only collect the punches in numerical pairs (i.e 1+2, 7+8 etc). The key was to find a pair to make sure you could do them both before trying any. While we were scouting the site we could see a lot of winching and tow recoveries taking place as competitors collected points and we began to wonder about the validity of our plan to make sure we knew where most of the clips were before we tried any. We needn't have worried because in the end we managed to collect all the punches and were first to leave the site, having driven up to and away from all the punches un-aided. It was during this exercise that Graham Finch got confused about which continent he was on, Australia or Europe! Oops. He later claimed that he had been parked at the time of the incident and that the Suzuki put itself upside down in the ditch. Seems like a tall story to me. That night around the campfire there was much speculation about who had managed which parts of the day's events but one thing everyone agreed on was that so far it had been a great challenge and it was very enjoyable.

Sundays test revolved around three trial sections and a new item, the pathfinder. The pathfinder was a group exercise that involved getting all the vehicles through a loosely marked course across virgin territory. This involved the removal of a lot of dead wood and some careful route planning and, oh yes, lots of winching. Step forward Finch the Winch and redeem yourself. First he had to winch himself into the woods, then he had to turn round and winch most of the others into the woods as well, then he had to winch all of us down a very steep slope. I wanted to drive down this slope but as I was in a minority of one I thought I had better go with the flow and accept the view of the majority (probably better for civil peace if I don't go home with a rolled/trashed motor) the last section of the course was a relatively easy meander through some trees before exiting back onto one of the main tracks. The trials were devilishly tricky and were definitely set out for the 90's and the Suzuki but even these were struggling with some of the gates. Frank Lythgoe impressed us all on the third section when he was the first to drive it and got a clear on what was a difficult section. This set the standard and I was determined to clear it too. It was at this point that my roof rack, packed with 8 shiny new spotlights decided to part company with the motor it was wired to and as I passed through gate 5 or 6 the remains of the lights wiring loom flopped down beside my open drivers side window. I grabbed this and momentarily stared at it in amazement but then I heard the cries of "keep going, keep going" and I realized that despite the bangs and scrapes I had actually cleared the gate so I went on to get my only clear run of the trials. As I was the last driver and this was the last part of the challenge it was time to head back to the camp and start nailing bits back on.

The only thing that remained was the results ceremony and although we suspected it was close the results were still a surprise. Gareth had got on with things quietly and without fuss and had discreetly performed well on all the tests. It was a very British way to win and he definitely deserved the victory. My own second place was also a surprise as coupled with my mistakes on the navigation exercise and a lack of consistency in the trialing I thought I had done worse than that. Most importantly it was clear that everyone had enjoyed the event and the competitiveness and in that way we were all to be considered winners… Will we be back for another go next year? If the competition is on you bet we will!