Posted by Chris on September 9, 2009
Reading back on the post I made at the beginning of February when we just finished the 4 wheel drive guides course, I cannot believe it took me about 7 months to finally get my ass into gear and just do the assignments. Read the initial post where I ended off stating that it shouldn’t take us too long!
I must admit, it was because of the course load, but rather my procrastination that kept me from getting this done. However, these last 2 weeks we’ve been working hard at it, and this morning Bernadette and I finally sent off our finished copies. There were some of the things I enjoyed setting up, but hated having to put everything down on paper. The 2 (out of 9) assignments I really enjoyed was setting up a 5 day tour of Lesotho and a 20 day tour of Zambia.
Sitting with those maps and researching about the places just made me want to go there even more.
The other assignments included:
1) What we would do if a person has an accident in another country and needs to be evacuated by helicopter and how we would get his vehicle back to South Africa. This gave me a chance to see if I remembered all the first aid procedures we were taught, and I surprised myself by remembering exactly what to do.
2) Discussing the cultural aspects of the Taal Monument and the Blood River battle.
3) How we would design and implement an eco friendly 4×4 trail.
4) If we could choose our ultimate 4×4 guide vehicle, what would it be and what extra would it have to make it the ultimate.
5) A 5 day tour of one of the cultural groups in South Africa.
6) Designing a indemnity form and evaluation form for our touring company.
7) Design a brochure for our touring company.
I’m just so glad and relieved to finally have this done. Now let’s hold thumbs that everything was done within the correct guidelines and that my registration to become a 4 Wheel Drive Guide goes through!
Posted by Chris on February 2, 2009
Wednesday night we headed off to Offcamber Adventures, the camp site and venue for our 4wd Drive Guides training. We would be there until Sunday afternoon.
The first night was spent getting to know the instructor and listening to all his stories, and does he have a lot of stories to tell! We were 4 people there, including the 3 of us from EC Offroad Adventures. We were split into teams and had to take turns to cook for each other. This was quite interesting as we normally just braai when we go camping, but we actually made meals this time. It turned out to actually be a lot easier than we’ve always thought, or perhaps we’ve just always been lazy. From now on we’ll be trying a couple of new things when we go camping.
The first day of actual learning came the next morning when we started with navigation. I found this the most interesting, especially because we were shown how to navigate using the stars. Other things we learned was how to deal with an emergency situation, how to organise and recce a trip, and then also how to run a trip. Things like what you need on your vehicle were also discussed. After the class we all headed for the pool to cool down before we studied a bit on what we did during the day. Then we headed off onto the 4×4 trail for some excitement.
The next day had us learning about poisons, bush camp safety, border post procedures and various other safety aspects. As we were going through the things quite fast, we decided that we’ll write the exam a day earlier, and thus going home a day earlier. So that afternoon we took a drive down to Patensie and when we came back studied a bit.
8:00 the following morning we started with the exam. It was a lot easier than we expected, and all of us did really well, with 98% being the average. We said our farewells and headed off home.
The only thing left now is for an assignment we need to do. This involves setting up a few tours on paper and also discussing various aspects of it. As we’ve already done a few of these for planning for trips we want to do, it shouldn’t be too difficult…. in theory obviously!
Posted by Chris on January 21, 2009
Towards the end of last year we (Barto De Koning, Bernadette Meistre and I) decided to start up a 4×4 adventure company. The main reason this came about was that together we organised a very successful event for a 4×4 club that we all belong to, and enjoyed doing it in the process. We also saw there was a need for people to go out on 4×4 trails that do not belong to a club. So after a lot of discussions took place, EC Offroad Adventures was formed.
Part of our offering to the people would be to take them on tours of 4×4 trails and our country side. With new laws being passed to control the 4×4 industry, it is very likely that we would be required to go on a 4 wheel drive guide course.
We debated about this among ourselves, as it’s a lot of money to lay out at the beginning of the business’ existence. The main reason for the debate was that nothing of the 4×4 laws have been set in stone, and thus we don’t know if the need for a 4 wheel drive guide would ever really be there. In the end we decided to do it, even if it is just to enrich ourselves as to how to run a tour. This will also ensure our members to 4WDGA (4 wheel drive guides association – http://www.4wdga.com/).
The course starts at the end of January, and will run over a weekend.