Robin to the Rescue

After departing from the Manawatu Caravan Club grounds at Foxton, we had arranged to take our caravan and stay at friends Geoff and Eileen’s rural property at Te Horo.  Why drive home in all that long weekend traffic if we don’t need to, we reckoned.  To say that our friends were in a spot of bother when we arrived, would be putting it mildly.  They were endeavouring to park their caravan up at the back of their property and had got bogged down in the soft wet soil.  The wheels of Geoff’s 4WD were spinning deeper and deeper in the mud and going nowhere as he tried in vain to back the caravan off the soft grass and onto the hard asphalt.  The problem seemed to be that as the wheels of caravan hit the edge of the asphalt the hitch mechanism switched from backing mode to braking making the task of getting the caravan off the wet grass onto the hard impossible.  Not helping the problem was that the the 4WD was equipped with road tyres not mud tyres.

Stuck fast in the mud

Could we help Geoff out of this quandary?  Of course, but we had to park our own caravan up first, and it was facing the wrong way so had to be backed onto the lawn in the front of the property but not putting our vehicle onto the soft grass. The idea was to unhitch the car turn it around staying on the asphalt, re-hitch, pull the caravan forward so that it was now facing towards the gate, then to back up to where it was to be parked. That was the idea but Robin had trouble getting the caravan hooked up to his 4WD as he did not have enough angle to work with.  Geoff then produced a long strop, attached it to both vehicles, and thankfully, pulled the caravan around on the soft grass.  Then it was just a matter of hooking the caravan up to the car, and carefully backing it past the house and in front of the garage.  Thank goodness one caravan is finally where it should be!

.  Attaching the strop

Now, back to that muddy problem around the back.  The drivers decided that two cars were needed to deal with this so the strop was attached between our vehicle and the back of the caravan.  My very important job in all of this was to be the go-between and let Robin know the second that Geoff started his car up.  With Robin towing and Geoff pushing, there was enough momentum to get the caravan out of the muddy hole and onto the asphalt.

Ready, steady, go

Success at last

Thank goodness that worked.  The caravan was soon manoeuvred into position with the help of two strong men.  After all that effort out in the rain we really needed a cuppa to recover.

The back lawn was a bit of a mess, and our friends decided that it might be a good idea to extend the asphalt to make turning the caravan easier in wet conditions.

Oh dear, a bit of a mess