Ash 4x4 hosted the Mitsubishi L200 club’s annual AGM weekend at Hawkestone Follies in Shropshire, providing a feast of off-roading entertainment. We tagged along in our long-term Double Cab Warrior that was crying out for some top action

Words and photography: Hils Everitt

We had been running our long-term Mitsubishi L200 Warrior for some months and it was really time to treat it to some decent off-roading, after buzzing around the motorways and dual carriageways on various magazine jobs.

Pick-up trucks were once generally thought of as dirty, tough utility trucks serving our community making sure we receive the amenities and trade services we need. Nowadays, they are also very much part of the lifestyle 4x4 market and are just as likely to be packed full of gear and kids on a weekend away for some fun. But it is often forgotten just what good off-roaders they can be. They still feature low-range gearboxes, and our Warrior’s low range was crying out to be used in earnest.

Despite all the major changes that have occurred in North Africa over the last year or so, one place remains accessible for the enthusiastic off-roader. But is Morocco the place that you should consider for your next overland trip? Here we offer some first hand experience.

Words and photography: Robert Pepper

Recreational off-roading covers a wide range of activity, from short-range hardcore trips to round-the-world epics. Most people fall somewhere in between, but constraints of time and budget mean that options can be limited.  That’s why Morocco is a popular destination, offering a taste of Africa yet being near enough to Europe to fit within an annual holiday. But what can you expect from such a trip? To find out, I joined Trailmasters on their Draa Valley Expedition, a two-week trek designed for the more experienced off-roader.

A good overland trip is hard to define, but one is factor is the environment, and Morocco does not disappoint with stunning scenery varying from harshly black mountains to ancient, wide dry rivers, salt lakes, forests and narrow, rocky gorges and the Sahara desert with its dunes. Then there’s the driving, consisting primarily of dirt roads in various stages of repair, some rocky sections and small sand dunes, all in general needing high clearance rather than low range. That was enough for interest but not difficult, just the way it should be on a long trek. We had the option to drive Saharan dunes at a campsite, and that provided more of a challenge for those who wanted it.

This is a story that has gone untold for nearly three decades. A group of inexperience Brits tackle the Dark Continent in a group of tired, second-hand, unreliable Unimogs – in search of ancient cave drawings. And adventure. They found both.

Words and photography: Schion Scudamore

This story is about 28 years late for the copy date, but as far as I know, no other account has ever been published in any other mainstream journal. It’s the story of 30 or so people from all walks of life brought together for an ambitious journey to catalogue and record petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) in the Tibesti Mountains in Northern Chad.

It was all so long ago that you will have to forgive me for any inaccuracies, I kept no diary so this is written from memory with a bit of poetic licence thrown in. The vehicles were bought from the £1000 each we contributed and from numerous sponsors who were supporting the project. It is also a story of a major change in direction of my life as it saw me shift from a career in car design, a dream for many these days, to working for the best part of the next 20 years in the circles of the adventure travel business.

We join a well organised off-road tour taking a Toyota Land Cruiser through Georgia, the fascinating former Soviet country – not the one in the US of A!

Words and photography: Toby Savage

A quick straw poll of mates in the pub revealed that none of us, among a fairly well travelled group of about a dozen, had ever been, or knew of anyone who had ever been, to Georgia. Once we’d got the predictable ‘Taking The Midnight Train To Georgia’ and ‘Rainy Night In Georgia’ comments out of the way, we all realised just how little we knew about the former USSR country that sits precariously between Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. One of our better-informed mates seemed to remember there was a war there quite recently.  It transpires it was with Russia, and as recent as 2008!