SOMETIMES adventure crops up in unlikely places. I was halfway into a two-week holiday in Australia. Most of my previous visits to this 4x4 mecca involved heading to the Outback for work. I have been very lucky: attending two Outback Challenges, crossing the Simpson Desert once and also doing what is known as the toughest 4WD track in the world, the Canning Stock Route. Most Australians only leave the cities they live in to work in a bar in London.
This trip was supposed to be different for me, meeting the girlfriend’s family in Sydney and Melbourne and catching up with friends in Perth. JetStar, Australia’s version of Ryan Air, had other ideas. The airline overbooked my flight to Perth on the Monday after the Melbourne Grand Prix weekend, so I was going nowhere. There was no space for me or several others on the plane to Perth.
I was in dire need of an adventure to take my mind off the injustice of it all. How about a road trip along one of the finest pieces of tarmac in the world, the coastal Great Ocean Road? Whilst in Melbourne I was supposed to have a 2016 beefedup Defender as a runaround, but because its owner Andrew Curry hadn’t finished fitting two new ARB lockers and some other bits and bobs including a bullbar, he instead left a £300 Discovery 2 Td5 auto for me at the airport. He then
