Pass with caution!

Last week end was a long but quick trip to area around Bikaner to find
tracks for the next Desert Storm. Three days and 1600kms sort of trip.
1200kms to and from Bikaner and rest spent around the town exploring
the unknown off the road country.

Originally planned the trip with two cars but the others could not join
in so left home base on Saturday by 1500hrs. Drove through Gurgaon,
Behror, Shahpura, turned off the NH8 and used state highway to Ringus
and then on the NH11 to reach Bikaner at 2230.

Next day was full taken up exploring the country around. The research
on GoogleEarth had already reveled some interesting alignments but till
you do it on the ground you really do not know.

Here is a shot which I liked from my last weeks outing on the Aravallis
and now this week I was heading for major off roading adventure in to
the desert

This track lead us through “monsoon” farming country. The fields here are somewhat green since they received some rain fall.

This young fellow got carried away in to thinking that GV was also one of the milch animals that he was tending.

Further afield the crops had failed and the farmer we met was disgusted
with his luck. Gave him a lift despite ferocious looking sickle that he
carried.

Climbing dunes was fun

But not as much as was coming down on the steeper side. Only wish there was another person to capture that on the camera.

The tracks that ran through the fields had many “gates” to keep out wild animals (read deer, chinkara and blue bull)

And this meant that my better half got enough exercise opening and closing those gates after us

Having a vehicle that can be taken off road and enjoying taking it on
to such territories was one of my major priorities when I purchased the
GV and I am enjoying it to the fullest.

The objective of finding 50km+ sections was partially achieved and so
the next Desert Storm will see most of the sections in the range of
50~100kms in length. This in contrast with 12~20kms that were run in
the initial years.

My latest toy is the Suzuki Grand Vitara for which I had waited for a long time. Once I got the chance to replace my aging Esteem I pounced on it gleefully, even though prudent fiscal management frowned on such extravagance. And as luck would have it I immediately got the chance to explore the benefits of a 4×4 drive while doing the Petronas X’pedition 2008 The sheer pleasure of driving wherever you wanted in the far reaches of Rajasthan was mind blowing. The last week end of 2007 was spent in the same area – Bikaner, Phalodi, Pokharan, Jaisalmer and Nagaur – doing route survey for Desert Storm 2008. Driving over dunes and sand and scrub and rocks was easily handled by my trusted steed.
This moved me to question what fun do majority of 4×4 SUV owners get except as status symbol? I do not see any one going off-road and enjoying the power of their toy. Anyways a new category of competition has now been added to the Desert Storm 2008 aimed at people who would want to enjoy the thrill of off-roading and yet at the same time have help on hand. The poster picture shows me enjoying myself all over the area.