The Waitohi River is a hill-fed river that runs from the hills south of Lake Sumner to the Hurunui River at SH7.
We got up the river and checked out the two exits on the way down. We drove towards the river for about 30-40 minutes and seeing as it was easy, Michael thought it would be a good opportunity to do some training. He found a nice steep bank and sent Arosh up it. He decided to go a different way and got too much side on and began that sideways shuffle along the lip. He stopped and we assessed it would be best for him to turn back down and he got down super simple. Michael then showed us how to take the lip off the bank by a few repeated forward and back runs at it pulling the top down to create more of a ramp and got to a level he thought would work, put his lockers in, and attached it with jandel. He almost got up with the front wheels airborne. Obviously close is not quite enough, so he came back down and got a longer run-up. Well, "BANG!! he got up but he snapped something in his rear diff.
We had to cut a rough track through the gorse to the gate. Luckily there was an old drive river bed there which once we got to it was not overgrown. Arosh jumped in with Michael and I with Alan and Linda and we made our way up to the gate. Alan had to snatch Michael in one part but he drove it all at a max of 5km/hr. The rear diff would lock itself every now and then and he would have to back off to free it. Through the gates to the road, the rest turned back to the river and the two other trucks (which we did not want to bring through the gorse) and we carried on down the river to the first exit and out.
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