'Er, this isn't the A481...'
I have always harboured a bit of a phobia about off-roading. It's not that I don't like clambering over the muddy stuff; more that I'm unaccountably nervous of breaking whatever it is I happen to be driving.
It's all a bit odd, really, because I have no such fear on a track, where you're probably much more likely to do some mischief to brakes/clutch/gearbox/suspension - depending on the level of your over-enthusiasm and at what speed something goes wrong.
Looks tame; feels terrifying
Even so, I have tended to look at merely moderately knobbly tracks with a sort of horrified paranoia. What if I get the car beached? What if it sinks into a peat bog? What if I get a boulder caught on the rear axle and it rips a wheel off?
But you can't run a car whose erstwhile strap line was 'the best 4x4 by far' without taking it off the blacktop. So it was in the best spirit of facing my fears that I headed off to deepest Herefordshire the other week with editor Chris-R and Garlick as my passengers.
Government denies potholes problem
After a surprisingly comfortable journey up the M4 and A419 in the Defender - you are buffeted about a bit and it's not what you'd call refined, but for a design that is essentially getting into its eighth decade it's actually perfectly tolerable - we arrived at Land Rover's Eastnor Castle experience centre.
Eastnor is a stunning estate of 5000 acres with 30 miles of managed off-road trails and runs to suit every level of ability and off-road nervousness. After a bit of bargaining with Chris and Garlick, (both of whom are much more confident in the rough than me) I managed to persuade them to go for what the instructors called a 'trundle around the estate' - the simplest and gentlest of off-road routes - as I had a sneaking suspicion that this would still involve what to me would look like death-defying scrambles over ground I would hardly dare walk on.
Garlick says he's calm, but his hands say not
So it proved. We almost immediately plunged into a network of deeply rutted tracks, angled slopes, one-in-three gradients, and three-foot-deep mini rivers. But it was not terrifying; it was deeply, deeply brilliant.
The Landie made you feel as though you were tackling an Amazonian rain forest (albeit one inexplicably populated with brambles, oaks and stinging nettles) while at the same time never giving the slightest indication that it was anything other than entirely capable of dealing with the situation.
And so it should have been because - as the Land Rover instructor who led us around in a Discovery 3 pointed out - our course could have been dealt with by a Freelander. Or a Porsche Cayenne or BMW X5 on road tyres for that matter. Which is as much an indicator of how much further off-road a Defender could go as it is an eye-opener as to how capable even soft-roaders are in the muddy stuff.
But what really blows the mind of an off-road novice such as myself is just how much you have to adjust your mindset, even on the 'nursery slopes' off-road route that we took. The car can do it - and with consummate ease - the trick is telling yourself that you can too.
Once I got my head around it, I found that off-roading is a deeply satisfying experience. So as we headed back down the M4 to the Big Smoke, and with my green-lane cherry popped with an afternoon's driving under my belt, I wanted to go back for more.
Fortunately, the fine people at Eastnor Castle Land Rover experience centre are going to let us do just that - and you can join in the muddy fun, too. Details below...
Get muddy with the PH team at Eastnor Castle
On Saturday 28 August Land Rover Eastnor Castle is throwing open its doors to PH, with 24 PH-shaped off-road spaces available for a day's clambering.
For £199 you'll get a chance to drive at least two models of Land Rover's range on a day filled with rocks, ravines, inclines and deep water - all guided (of course) by LR's expert instructors.
This being a PistonHeads event, bacon sandwiches will also be on offer, and you'll be able to meet the PH team, as we'll be joining in the fun in our very own PH fleet Defender (We know - that's an offer that's almost impossible to resist...).
We'll bring you more details on the PH off-road event of 2010 - including details of how to book your place - soon, so watch this space! (well, not this one, but the PH home page...)