In the afternoon, it’s getting wilder! We’ve booked a Land Rover driving experience, in a Defender of course. Marc, our instructor, is a real hard core guy. He’s travelling all over the world to test and show off Land Rovers. We was in Norway recently to drive one on a frozen lake. He’d be taking us where other instructors don’t dare to go and, no worries, it’s already three weeks since his last incident while on the test track. We’ve been give the right instructor, then! 😉

Gabi sits in the back while I take place on the passenger side first. Marc demonstrates what the Defender is capable of. Driving at an angle up to 40° for example. Or up or down very steep passages, through ‘elefant footprints’ as he says, very deep potholes. And through water of course. A looooooooooot of water.

Then, we switch places. Before every obstacle, he explains to me how to handle it and what to do if we fail. We drive up and down steep slopes, through more water, on train tracks… and up two flights of stairs. The Defender makes everything look really easy and masters every bit that would have other cars cry of terror. We’re a bit sceptic when we feel the water just below our feet. The Defender wades through 50 cm of water but Marc says it’s even more in reality.

From the offroad track, we continue to Solihull’s famous ‘jungle track’. It’s a real jungle – an overgrown forest with trees, mud and water. It’s a privilege to drive the jungle track. We really feel like on an excursion in Africa or India and await an indigenous person staring at us from behind a tree.

The tour ends with a seesaw: driving past its middle point will make it slowly lean forward to continue our way. The easiest way to do so is by braking once or twice to get it going, Marc says. He had driven it without breaking and fallen/jumped the last bit to the ground. We’re still completely excited when we get back to reception. Marc compliments me on my driving which he liked quite much. He says that I didn’t make the usual mistakes of those used to driving a left hand side driven car. And he states that everything we did today in the Defender, our car can do too: steep slopes, driving at an angle and through water… he tested that out in another Evoque. It only has a lower angle of slope due to its lower ground clearance. And he tells us which settings we need to use if necessary. A wonderful experience!

From Solihull, we drive north. We haven’t been that far north ever before. We arrive in Manchester at eight in the evening and have a burger before going to bed.