Spent a most enjoyable day at the Atlantis dunes doing a bit of vehicle recovery and lots of driving. We have a 1994 Landcruiser and notwithstanding our best efforts, we were unable to get it stuck in the sand. If she got “boggeddown”, the solution to getting going again is to put her in low range and just grind your way out. The truck is super comfortable and capable. We had a Terracan, Hilux and new Ford Ranger with us and all had a great time.
Our recovery exercise happened when the Terracan got bogged down near the top of a particularly steep dune. Rob reversed down the dune to the bottom to get a run-up and build up speed/momentum to get to the top and unfortunately the car got stuck at the bottom. We had taken our sand tracks and recovery equipment with us, so we attached the snatch rope to the towing lug on the rear of the Cruiser and the other end to the towing lug on the front of the Terracan. A bit of digging and the sand tracks were placed in front of the rear wheels, get a bit of a start on the Cruiser and we started the process of snatching him out of the deep sand. All to no avail! We managed to get him out of the hole he had dug himself into, but as we were towing uphill, the Cruiser started digging herself in. Without difflock the wheels started spinning and the whole show came to a grinding halt. We had made about 3m progress but it was going to be a long day if this was all we could achieve. We also noticed that the Terracan only had power going to the rear wheels, which would explain why it was getting itself dug in and not making progress. Fortunately the HiLux had a difflock and once we had hooked him up, he was able to drag the Terracan out of the sandbowl.