4WD Beginner Tips: Everything You Need to Know to Start

This is a real, beginner-friendly guide to 4WDing — no gatekeeping, no overcomplication. Just practical tips to help you feel more confident getting out there. I’m not coming at this as an expert — I’m learning as I go, and sharing what’s actually worked for me out on the tracks.

I cover the essentials like recovery gear, tyre pressure, and the differences between driving on sand, mud, and corrugations — plus the things no one really talks about, like track etiquette and how to avoid getting yourself into trouble in the first place.

I also share some of my own experiences, from helping others get unstuck to why I carry a winch I’ve never actually had to use.

If you’ve been wanting to get into 4WDing but feel overwhelmed, this episode will give you the confidence to start.

⏱️ WHAT I COVER:

 4WD beginner tips & mindset 
 Basic setup & must-have gear 
 Recovery gear explained (simple + practical) 
 Tyre pressure basics (and why it matters) 
 Sand vs mud vs corrugations 
 4WD etiquette & track courtesy 
 UHF channels in Australia 
 How to avoid getting stuck 
 What to do if you do get stuck

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Hosted by Sarah Rose Foster

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is one that I think will divide a lot of people. So I just was like, you know what? Help yourself you. I'm not helping you. So I got back in my car. It's ironic because I do solo travel. My best advice is always trying to take a buddy with you. I have had quite a lot of exposure to four wall driving over many years, and this has been mostly through friends, full drive events, and just my own learning. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Solo Experience podcast. I'm your host Sarah, and today's topic of conversation is all about four wheel driving for beginners. I want to start by saying that I am not an expert. I'm not professionally trained, so take this advice with a grain of salt, and I always encourage people to go out and do courses for things like this. It can help build your confidence quite significantly. I have had quite a lot of exposure to forward driving over many years, and this has been mostly through friends, forward drive events, and just my own learning. So it's one of those things. Like, even though I haven't gone and done a forward drive course, I feel so confident in my abilities, and I like to think that I know enough to give that advice. But like I said, there's so many courses out there. So if that's something that resonates with you and you'd rather get a certificate of some form with a trained professional, I could not recommend that highly enough. But yeah, from my own experience, I will share as many tips and tricks in this episode as I possibly can, especially based off of my own experiences. Even though I'm not gonna lie to you, I've never really been stuck, but I have helped a lot of people and I've done a lot of my own research and training when it comes to if that were to occur. I think I liked, well, I like to think I would be able to get out of it pretty easily. So yeah, we'll cover all of that, whether you're a beginner right through to, I'm not gonna say advanced because you've probably got a leg up on me. But for driving, I have been forward driving now for I would say four to five years with my own vehicle. Before that, I've definitely experienced forward driving through friends quite significantly. Did I learn much in those periods? Probably not because everything was done for me. I just got to see the epic views, but that's what gave me the motivation to get my own forward drive and get out there and get it done. And there's that level of I would say exposure therapy where because I was seeing these things done, being able to put that into practice myself, I'm not gonna say it was easier because even the first time I ever aired my tires down, that was an ordeal in itself. I had a friend with me who had no idea, and look, we still laugh about it to this day, but when it comes to tire deflation, there's so many that you can get these days, and I'm gonna jump straight in to talking about tire deflation because I think this is just the baseline of four wheel driving. Honestly, if you get your tires right, there is a roll-on effect to how the rest of your trip is, because I think that's one of the reasons I've never really been stuck, is because I understand tire brush, I understand how my car feels in certain situations where if I notice that my tires aren't down enough, like you can pick up on those cues that your car is giving you, but it does take a little bit of practice. But when I first bought a tire deflator, it was this one. I still have it to this day. It's one that has the gauge, there's a like a little hose that leads down to this little screw-on attachment. So you effectively take the cap off of your wheel, you then attach the tire deflator, so you screw it on, and then there's this little lever. And I'm not going to explain this perfectly, but with the lever, you effectively have to push it in, you twist it to almost release the little valve in your tire, and then that in turn allows you to deflate the tires by pulling out that little pin. So it's this whole process, and I didn't know how to use one. I went to the shop, I bought one, I went to the beach for the life of me. I could not work it out. And I was on YouTube trying to figure all this out, and like I said, it was just the funniest thing. In the end, I ended up asking a stranger to come over and help, and that's sort of how I learnt what I would say the hard way. These days I run an automatic tire deflator, and there's so many on the market these days as well. When it comes to correct terminology, guys, I'm probably gonna butcher all of this, so please do your own research. But the tire deflators that I've got now, nothing in this episode is sponsored either, but I've gone and gotten some from Autoburn, and it's effectively one that you actually preset. So it has all the numbers on there, it's super easy, but you effectively preset it to the tire pressure that you want, you put it on to your wheel, and then you pull a pin and it deflates itself to that set PSI. So I think that's probably the easiest thing, but there's so many out there these days. So, like I said, do your own research. There's probably one that's even easier than that. I'm pretty sure there's one floating around these days that you can deflate all four tires at the same time. I think that's genius. I haven't looked into that properly myself, but yeah, tire deflation is huge. So this is where getting to know your car can be really important because with my BT50 that I've got now, I understand the weight that I'm carrying and I understand how it handles, and that's a lot of it to do with past experience, but also just using it. So a lot of the time, if I am going into, for example, corrugation. This is where let's say it's a dirt track and there's just all these like corrugations based off of weather, and it can create quite an uneven surface on the ground. Typically, to just stop everything from just rattling like crazy, depending on how long the track is, I will usually put my tires down to roughly anywhere between 25 to 30 psi for corrugation. Might be higher, might be lower. There's been times I haven't lowered my tire pressure, but I've definitely noticed it in the sense it's like a lot more horrible and uncomfortable to drive on, and things in my canopy are usually just everywhere by the end of it. So yeah, just deflating your tires on corrugation can just help with the ease of the drive. Then when we start to go into sand driving for my BT50, honestly, at the moment I will start from around 20 to 25. You can go higher, I don't typically recommend it on sand, and you can absolutely go lower. So when it comes to sand, if I'm anywhere near sand dunes or soft sand, I will put it straight down to 15, no questions asked. If you start to get stuck in sand, depending on where your tires are, if you're on 25, drop it down to 15. If you're on 15 and you are like dug deep, chuck it down as low as you need to to get out. As long as you can get your vehicle out safely, you can always air your tires up afterwards. Yes, there is risk. I'm not gonna go into that personally because it's not something I've experienced, but I've never dropped my tires lower than 15. But as I said, if I needed to, I would absolutely be dropping it down even to five if I had to, especially if there is an oncoming tide, you're stuck, but like I said, I haven't been in that situation before. And then when we come to like off-roading, mud, more dirt tracks, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I don't have a lot of experience in these areas. It's not my go-to style of forward driving. I used to go to forward drive parks where this was the style, and that was really good learning. But typically, unless there is a good view, I'm not typically taking those tracks because there's a lot more risk. But for those styles of tracks, it's very condition-based. And this is what does a track look like? Is it rocky? Is it muddy? All these factors can really change the conditions in which you're driving. But I typically find anywhere for off-roading, myself personally, I find 20 to 25 is a good benchmark, but you can definitely go lower. Some people, you know, have given me advice. For example, I was in the Victorian High Country and I did Blue Rag. It was quite a strenuous and long track. It wasn't aggressively hard, but there was a lot of holes, there was a lot of corrugation, there was a lot of rocks, and a lot of people actually told me to make that drive comfortable. I actually should have gone down way lower. And that's where doing your own research, I'm giving you guys a baseline, and you can work with it from there, do your own research. But those are the tie pressures that I will typically work within. Funny story, so beach driving, especially, because I said this is where I feel the most comfortable and the most amount of experience that I've personally had, but I've had to help a lot of people on beaches specifically, and this is where experience comes down to it. So I was on Stockton Sand Dunes a little while ago now, and I was driving back up to the campsite. So I was driving on the sand dunes, and I'd gone onto the beach, and my tires were at 15 the whole way through just to be on the safe side, and I was driving, there was a car a little while in front of me. I started to notice that I was starting to sink down, I was starting to slow down significantly. And a little bit further up the beach, there was the softer sand, but I just felt that my car was lagging a lot, so I decided to move away from the waterline, which is typically the most firm part, but like I said, case by case. So I decided to move up away from the waterline, up to the softer sand, but that's where I found I got that momentum back. The car that had been in front of me they stayed on the waterline, and I started to see them slow down significantly to a point where they just came to a complete standstill. The guy has gotten out of the car and he sort of run up the beach in the pathway of me. Obviously, I was gonna stop anyway, but I pulled over and he's like, hey, can you help me get out of here? By this point, the waterline was a pretty significant distance from where I was, like the beach had stretched out, so it was a big distance between where he was and where I was. He had two kids in the car, he had his wife in the car, his kids were crying. Like I said, we're pretty close to the waterline at this point, and the tide is coming in. I walked down to his car and my feet were sinking into the sand, and I was like, okay, this is a tricky situation because if I were to drive back down to where he is, the likelihood of me then getting stuck in order to get him out would be highly likely. I don't personally have rear recovery points on my car, which I'll go into a little bit further as well, but I do have front recovery points. I did not have a winch at this point. So the options were obviously dig him out, that's always gonna be our first priority. But as far as me personally recovering him with my vehicle, the odds were not exactly in my favour. So I decided to make a call and I was like, look, hey, I don't feel comfortable driving in and then trying to reverse recover you out in the sand that you're in because it was just so soft and so boggy. We went straight down to his car, and my first question was, What are your tires on? And it's like, Oh, I haven't deflated them. And I just it makes you really frustrated because I was like, that is just the first thing you should be doing before you go onto a beach. And I said to him, like, we're gonna drop your tires down to like 10, 15, whatever we need to. If we need to go lower, we can. And he was so stressed, he's like, Oh, aren't they gonna roll off the beads? This is where I'm gonna draw the line with what I know and what I don't know. I don't know enough about tires rolling off beads in that sort of circumstance. I've never seen it happen, I've never had it happen personally, but I know for a fact that you need to get your car out of danger's way. So I reassured him we put his tires down. As soon as we put his tires down to 10, he drove straight out. A little bit of digging was required, no recovery boards, just his tires. And that's the thing where I say tires are literally everything. There's a lot of other factors that go into it, but tires are a huge one. So that was one of the biggest experiences I've had with that personally. From there, when we start to really unpack things like recovery gear, so in that instance, if we were not able to get him out by reducing his tires, I already mentioned digging around the tires is crucial. If you don't have a high clearance clearance vehicle, which means you've got a pretty decent clearance underneath your vehicle to be able to get over certain things, sometimes the vehicle itself can actually bottom out on sand, in which case you have to not only dig around the tires, but you also have to dig all that sand out from underneath the car as well. So that would be your first instance. Dig dig dig. Get as much sand out away from the underneath of the vehicle and the tyres as you possibly can. Then you're gonna need something for traction, and this is where recovery boards are a must. I could not recommend carrying recovery boards enough. In order to dig the car out, if you still can't get out after that, recovery boards, placing them underneath the tires or at least as much as you can, it allows the tyres to actually be able to rotate and grab onto something, and that will help propel the car forward, and that's where recovery boards are great. I personally carry two on me. I probably could put that up to four because once again, right now I'm in a position to you know put those recovery boards under two wheels, but having four wheels with the recovery boards can make it even easier. But like I said, it's just reading the conditions. I typically try to avoid driving on the beach in oncoming tides because if you were to get stuck, you're on a time limit to actually getting away from that tide. Then of course, it's just reading the conditions of like how soft the sand is, how skilled you are, and also reading other people's reviews on beach locations, I think is really important. A lot of the time when I go onto beaches, I've usually looked at track conditions, I've watched people's YouTube videos on it, so I like to think I know what I'm walking into. And if the big majority of people are saying that the sand is soft, I go in prepared with my tires down lower, or I walk the track first, where possible. So always walk the track, do your research. New Tracks is an app that I use personally for four-wheel driving, but there's also HEMA maps as well. The reason I like New Trax is because it color codes tracks. Even though tracks can change, just having that as a benchmark is to say, oh, this track is green, so it's easy, this track is red, so it's hard, this track is black, so it's extreme. It gives you an idea of like, okay, on a normal basis, this is the condition of the track, but go in and be mindful that that track can change. But I think that's the biggest thing with like, yeah, any kind of sand driving is just do your research. When I was in South Australia, there is this famous beach track. So it's robe to beach port or beachport to robe, whatever direction you're going in, but it is, yeah, very well known in South Australia and Victoria, and it's a really fun four-wheel drive track. So when you are on that track, you're typically driving in one direction, but you can take uh paths down to different beaches. I had read that some of those beaches were incredibly soft, and a lot of vehicles are lost in that process, and that's where I decided to go to the information center first and foremost. I spoke to them because they're local, they know the tracks, they know the conditions, and I got all the information, maps, everything that I needed. So plan and prepare is crucial. Then once I got onto the track once again, I gauged it, there were beaches I decided not to drive on because I heard that they were soft. I walked on them and I just sunk down, and that for me, I don't know, I'm not in it for the thrill. I want to see the location, but I don't want to cause myself undue stress because my car is worth a lot of money, but it's also my home. I don't want to do anything that is going to get in the way of me living the life that I'm living and riding my car off to drive on a beach that I could have otherwise avoided. That's not worth it for me. So yeah, plan, prepare, make sure that you have recovery boards, make sure that you know how to deflate your tires and what to deflate them to, but don't be scared to just test it out. If you've got an air compressor, which I think everybody should have, if you are deflating your tires, you should have the ability to inflate them. You do not want to rely on service stations or other locations, even though they're really good. I just think that should be more of a backup plan. I have had an air compressor break on me before and I had to drive 30 kilometers with my tires deflated to get to a service station, but that was because I had to. It wasn't because I needed to, it's just unfortunately in that circumstance, my air compressor just decided to tap out and stop working, which is yeah, not ever ideal. So yeah, know how to inflate your tires. Once again, there's so many ways that you can do that. A lot of them are just, you know, ones that you can pack up into a bag, chuck in your car. A lot of them you can get them inbuilt into your car, but yeah, definitely get a decent air compressor. When I had my gymney, I could run around with this tiny little air compressor, and funnily enough, that was the one that broke because I kept it because it was wasteful to get rid of it. When I bought my BT, my tires were significantly bigger, but I kept pushing this one little air compressor. I was like, you can do it. It used to overheat all the time, and it would take a good, I'm gonna say 45 minutes to air up all four tires. So I was actually quite grateful when it broke because I was like, thank god, I actually really want to upgrade this. That was a lot. But yeah, for all those reasons, I've never gotten truly stuck. There's been a couple of times where I've been lazy and I've not deflated my tires. Like there was one beach I wanted to get on purely just to park up. I wasn't driving on the beach, I just wanted to drive in there and just sort of like park up. And yeah, I got on there, but I did have to pull out my recovery ports to get out because I obviously got stuck pretty quickly there. But yeah, luckily nothing or no close calls, which is great, and I plan on keeping it that way. But when we get into other types of forward driving, so yeah, definitely when you think about mud and I would say more like rocky dirt tracks. Once again, this isn't something I have a huge amount of confidence in. I've definitely done tracks like I've done Blue Rag in the Big High Country, I have done a lot of other tracks around Australia, you know, in Western Australia and South Australia and Queensland. I've done all these tracks, but it's just not my normal go-to. And that's where I decided to get a winch installed. I've actually never used it. I have played around with it to make sure I know how to use it if the time ever comes. But yeah, so far I've never had to use it in an instance. But when it comes to going off-road, having a winch, you have the ability to anchor yourself to a tree or potentially to another car or to a secure object in order to winch yourself out of a situation, and this can be really helpful in things like mud, water sometimes, and of course, just yeah, any kind of rocky track where you're potentially rolled over or whatever it might be. When it comes to winches, I would encourage everyone to do a course, myself included, I've never had to use it. And to be honest, if I had to use it one day, I would know how to use it to the most basic level, just to, you know, obviously secure it to a tree and get myself out of a situation. Depending on how your power source or how you can actually access your winch, mine has got a remote control that I have to actually attach. And that's where if it's something like water or really deep mud, or you've gotten yourself into a situation that you weren't otherwise prepared for, sometimes the ability to actually connect the controller to the winch can be limited, especially if it's yeah, deep mud or deep water, if you can't physically get under there to attach the controller, that's something to consider. But yeah, winches are great if you know how to use them effectively, but definitely something I would always recommend doing a course on. But for me, it's just a great option, it's a great backup plan. I'm not doing anything that extreme by myself that I would really need to use it, it's purely just there for very severe emergency cases. I have driven through deep water crossings where something like a snorkels come in handy. Once again, it's sort of just reading the conditions. How fast is the water flowing? How deep is the water, cross it first, in my opinion. Know the limitations of what your vehicle can do driving through water crossings and just sort of gauge it. But it's ironic because I do solo travel, my best advice is always try to take a buddy with you. And I know that's rich coming from me because I do a lot of these things by myself, but like I said, I know the limitations, I know what I'm comfortable doing. Sometimes I do push that limit. That's the point, that's the only way you're gonna learn is to push the limit. But if you're going in completely brand new with no, you know, experience of any form or no exposure, that's where you're gonna come into a lot of issues, and you're not gonna trust yourself enough because you don't have that experience. So, yeah, get out, do stuff, learn as much as you can, have the right recovery gear, and I think that those things can all make a huge difference. Even actual recovery gear in the sense of you know, all your ropes and like kinetic ropes and all of these different things that you can have if you've got another vehicle with you are so handy, and that's just so that hypothetically, if you're stuck, you've got another vehicle with you, that's where you've got these ropes that you can attach to each vehicle to help recover each other. I always carry these on me. Once again, never use them, never even taking them out of the packaging. I think a lot of the time because I don't have rear recovery points, it has limited me when it comes to helping other people in that capacity. But I haven't really come into a lot of instances where I truly have had to help a lot of people, which has been quite good. Not to say it hasn't happened. The amount of times that I've seen two-wheel drives, vans drive into locations I just don't think they should belong in. That stuff does annoy me a little bit because it's tricky. I had this one instance actually. This is one that I think will divide a lot of people. This was my judgment on the situation, and I think once again it's just circumstantial. To give you a bit of an idea, I was in Exmouth, and there is this sandy track that you've got to take or like dried up riverbed that you've got to cross to get into the four-wheel drive section. I was parked up on the beach, which is quite soft. Literally all day I was watching people get stuck left, right, and centre, and we're talking about four-wheel drives. And it was late in the afternoon, I was on the beach cooking out dinner, and I saw this van yeet across. I don't even know how it made it across to begin with, but to give you a bit of an idea of this van, it was, I don't even know who where it was registered, but it was spray painted, it was rusted out, it just wasn't well looked after, and you could just tell that whoever was driving it didn't really give a shit. So they've s like spared across, and I'm just like, what an idiot. Like, good luck to you. And I'd probably say 15 minutes later, they came back out to cross this section because obviously they've realized that they didn't want to go any further. They've driven all the way across and they got stuck right at the entrance where they came in. And straight away I knew it. I was like, okay, they're probably gonna come over and ask me to help them. So what do you know? The guys walked over, they were a pretty fair distance away from me, but he's walked all the way over and he's like, Hey, would you mind winching us out, like getting us out of this? And I was like, Well, have you tried digging around your ties? No. Okay, do you have any recovery gear? No. Do you have recovery points? No. And I was like, Okay, where would you like me to attach said ropes for you? Because he was adamant he wanted me to, you know, winch him out of some form. And he's like, Oh, we'll just tie it to the toe bar, I'll tie it to the bull bar. And I was like, no. I haven't done any four-wheel drive training, but I know for a fact you do not attach any kind of recovery to a bull bar, like especially if it's rusted out first and foremost. Like the bull bar didn't have any recovery points. And then when you think about the toe bar, he was saying about connecting it to the toe ball, and I was like, hell no, like these are just big no-nos that I think a lot of people just know in the industry that you just don't attach any kind of recovery gear to those. And being a van, like I said, it didn't have recovery points, and I was like, I don't feel comfortable doing that. First of all, if I attach this to any part of your car and that comes off and ricochets back into my vehicle, I'm like, that's me putting my home in danger. So he kind of was like, okay, fine, whatever, walked away. Anyway, I packed up all my stuff because, like I said, I'd cooked dinner, I packed up all my stuff, and I drove over there. I was like, I might as well ask to see if they want some help as far as digging out and I can use my recovery boards. And I drove over there, and someone had come down to help them. And straight off the bat, I walked over and I was like, hey, like, can I help you guys dig out? And the guy flipped it at me. He went into me, he's like, I can't believe you guys, you won't give these guys a rope, you won't even help them out. I was like, I'm literally here to help. But he just kept going off at me. And I was like, you know what? I'm not here for this. I don't deserve to be yelled at. You're the one that's put yourself into this really shitty situation, you're the one that doesn't have any of the gear, and I'm really stubborn. I don't know if anyone's picked up on that, but I'm incredibly stubborn. And when somebody comes at me like that, I will put my foot down. Full context, there was no tide coming in, this was not a tidal area, no one was in any immediate danger. So I was in my right to be stubborn. So I just was like, you know what? Help yourself. It's all you, not helping you. So I got back in my car. And look, within 15 minutes, they dumped themselves out and they were they drove out. But it was the all these things considered, like that was just me in that moment. I would help anybody, but don't yell at me, don't come at me, don't expect me to do anything that's outside of my comfort zone of my skill level, but also putting my belongings in danger, and that's where you really just have to read the situation. In hindsight, yes, I could have offered to help dig them out from the get-go, but one thing that I've truly noticed, and like no shade on anybody, but if someone's willing to take a track they shouldn't be on, a two-wheel drive and a van, and they aren't even willing to dig themselves out, it's not my job to dig them out. It is not my job to dig them out. It's I can happily help, I will always help. But if they can't help themselves, I shouldn't have to help. And I have helped a two-wheel drive on a beach before. This isn't the first instance I've seen it happen. There were these two girls who drove onto this beach. It's um in WA, it's called Wiley Beach. It is beautiful, it's very Instagrammable. There is these effectively two sides of the tide that come in and meet, but there's this sandbar that opens up as the tide recedes, and it's stunning. But they had seen on social media the photos of the cars parked up in that area. Maybe someone photoshopped their car into it that shouldn't have been there. So them having a two-wheel drive, I think it was a Toyo Yaris. They drove onto the beach to get out to this spot, thinking that they could get out there, they got stuck very quickly, and that was an instance where they were so polite, it was purely a mistake, it wasn't intentional. And I was like, look, I'm obviously gonna give you a hand. Same, same deal though. They were completely bonded out. There was no using my vehicle to get them out, it was just a matter of like dig them out, use the recovery boards. And the reason I say that most people don't want to help themselves is they don't have the knowledge, so therefore, if you come in with the knowledge, you're gonna do it and they'll just stand and watch. And that's something I've experienced, and it does annoy me a little bit. And I did say the girls like, hey, like, I'm gonna dig out this tire, can you dig out that one? So I give them really clear instructions on doing it, but that's what I'm saying. Typically, people who don't have the capable vehicles, they don't have the know-how to help themselves anyway. They just see it as like, oh, cool track, I'm sure I'll be fine, and it's somebody else's problem. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna generalize here and say there's a lot of pea plates males out there that would froth that. They froth recovering people, and good on them. I think we need people like that, but I don't know. I hold people to a very high level of like personal responsibility, and I know that that is not a good place to be. As I said, I would help anyone. I really want to drive this home. I don't want to dig myself a hole and say I'm not helping people. I just take it case by case. If you can't help yourself and if you've done the wrong thing and you're rude to me, you pretty much guarantee I'm gonna leave you there. Unless I would never leave someone if a tide was coming out. I would I would push past my own stubbornness, I promise. But that's where I've had a lot of experience, but never really had to use my vehicle in those instances. But coming full circle, I mentioned earlier about rear recovery points. So typically you'll have a toe bar of some form that have rated recovery points. That's what you want to be using. Now, don't quote me on this, I probably should look this up myself, but toe ball never attach any type of recovery gear to a toe ball. There's so many videos and stories out there where you can literally go and watch it, and a lot of the time it comes loose and it smashes through windows, and you do not want to be in that situation. I do believe there is like rated attachments you can get specifically for that. But yeah, for myself, when I do eventually get a toe bar put onto my BT, I'll make sure it does have the rated recovery points so that A, I can recover people, but also if you're in a situation where you can only be recovered from, you know, the rear, then that's also an option as well. So definitely on my list of things to do, that is for sure. But yeah, bit of a funny story, but yeah, I've had plenty of instances where I've had to help dig people out, but yeah, that one definitely, definitely topped it, that's for sure. So we've gone over the basics of tire deflation, inflating your tires with an air compressor, general recovery gear, recovery boards, recovery points, winches, to the best of my ability anyway. The next thing I'd be looking at, and I sort of mentioned this before, was about high clearance vehicles. When we start to look at tires and suspension, these can drastically change how capable your car is. And I say this in a sense that, you know, my chimney was completely stock and I did perfectly fine on every single track. But then I got my BT50. I did actually go up to North Queensland before I had anything done, before I had suspension done, before I had um wheels put on, I took a completely stock and I did do a couple of small tracks, nothing crazy, and it's still capable, but the moment I not only changed the suspension and upgraded that, the capabilities on it, not only on corrugated tracks, but just any type of track was so good. Like the drivability changes so much, and of course, you get that added clearance, which is really helpful on tracks. But tires especially, so in a perfect world, once again, it comes down to how you're going to be using your car. For me, and if you are going to use yours in a general capacity, like I do, like more touring, definitely some off-roading, but nothing too extreme. I definitely have big chunky tires, which I think has saved me a lot. But you typically will want all-terrain tires. You can go your mud terrain tires, but I feel like that's more if you're doing some, yeah, obviously extreme four-wheel driving, more muddy tracks, you know, if you love that bush bashing type of thing. I don't know a whole heap about mud terrains, so I'm not gonna dive into that. But all-terrain tyres, they're designed so that the track on them and the grip on them is significantly increased so that you can have a lot more traction on tracks. I'm not gonna go into the technical side because that is not my expertise. I just know that all-train tires are your go-to's and you want to make sure that they're in good condition so that you can obviously handle appropriately on not only dry conditions but also wet conditions as well. And that's where when you deflate your tires, it increases the tread footprint of your tire, and that's what makes it more capable. So there's all these things that just when you layer them on top of each other, it makes off-roading and four-wheel driving significantly safer and more capable. So do your research for myself. My tires on my BT at the moment. I've got 285 7017 all-terrain Cooper Rugged Trek tires. I could probably go down ever so slightly, and I probably will eventually, because I do get a bit of scrubbing, which does irritate me a lot when I'm doing forward driving. But yeah, I find that the big tires, especially when I'm deflating them, the surface area that I have on the ground, game changer, honestly. So yeah, look into a good set of tires, look into upgrading your suspension from sock suspension if you're gonna be doing some forward driving as well. But some other really key tools and gear that I'd recommend having is a UHF or Starlink. UHF is great because you have a certain radius that you can communicate with other vehicles, with trucks, or with friends that you're around, and that is just a really great way to keep tracks safe. I have mentioned in the past, I obviously travel by myself, I don't use my UHF that much, but when I've been on four-wheel drive tracks, especially narrow tracks, one-way tracks, sand dunes, it's really good to be able to listen into other people's conversations because you can sort of get a gauge of like, you know, how many are in that convoy or you know what they're saying about the track. There's been instances where there is universal channels, which we'll go over soon, but if you're on a universal channel and like for example, the rule of thumb, and actually we should go over rules of uh forward driving as well or etiquette, but the rule of thumb, if you're on a narrow track, if you are one vehicle or two vehicles and there is a convoy of say five or six vehicles, it's typically the person who is in the smaller group that would move off to the side. So, me typically always being by myself, I will always typically be the first person to pull off to the side to let a convoy come through. But that's why being on a UHF, especially if it's a universal channel, you can communicate to make sure that all cars come through before you jump back on the track. So UHF is a great one. I say Starlink, Starlink is obviously quite limited in itself, like coverage and all the rest of it, but I find Starlink being a solo traveler is really good because if I'm on the radio and there's no one around me in that radius and there's no reception, Starlink can be a great way for me to call for help or you know, any type of emergency services if I need it. From there, a shovel. I know it sounds so silly, and you're like, what could I need a shovel for? Shovels come in handy for literally everything. Not only when you're digging yourself out of a situation, like max tracks can definitely work, or any kind of recovery boards typically have a shovel function for sand, but you want to make sure you're carrying a shovel in case there's any other instances you have to dig yourself out. I think that's the main general gear that I carry with me at all times. Let me know if you guys can think of any other gear that I might be missing. I feel like there's always a million things that you can have on you, and that's gonna obviously make the whole situation safe. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, another thing I would highly, highly recommend carry on you at all times is a tire repair kit. Never had to use mine before. I do know how to use it. Thankfully, I've done training on this, but having a tire repair kit means that if you're on a track or if you're quite remote and you do get a puncture to your tire, you have the ability to at least do a bit of like a quick fix until you can get to a location to have it properly assessed as well. That's another thing. And then keeping on the subject of tires, then we've also got to look at the fact of like being able to change your own tire is so important. So when I was in Victoria ages ago, I had my gymney. I believe it's still a big thing, but Yeah, the girls is this four-wheel drive group for women all over Australia. Typically, they do events, but there's so many other companies and local community groups that do this as well. I've had plenty of people on the podcast and we've spoken about this in length. Typically, if you don't do a four-wheel drive training course, you can go out to these community days and you can learn so much. But I went out with Yeather Girls in Victoria and that's where I learned how to not only repair a tire, they had a tire there and they got us all to give it a go. But not only that, they're the ones that taught me how to take my tire off and change it, and I physically did all of it. Did I need to? No. But I would rather have those skills in usable form before I'm in a high stress situation. So if you have the ability to see if you can change your own tire and also see if you have the ability to use a tire repair kit so that you at least know how to do that on the spot. Even though people are always happy to help, you just don't want to always rely on somebody else being there because you might be in a situation where there's nobody there. So coming back to UHF basics, so I've gotten up the Australian equivalent of channels. There is so many channels, and like there's a lot of printouts you can get online as well, so I recommend print one out and keep it in your car at all times. So channel 40 is classified for use for highways and trucks, so really good if you're overtaking on the highways or if you're once again you need to know about conditions. Looks like channel 18 is what caravans use. Can't see I've ever used that channel before, but good to know. And channel 10 is the universal four-wheel drive track channel. It's not to say that people don't use other channels. I've been on four-wheel drive tracks before where I'll just want to be on a channel with me and my friends. So we'll find a channel that's not in use, that's not under the classification of ones that you shouldn't use, but they're the three that you should know. So channel 40 for trucks and highways, channel 10 is for four-wheel drive tracks, or just overall common tracks used, and then channel 18 is for caravans. So get yourself a printer, look up online. There are a heap of other channels that you can't use, like things like emergencies, but yeah, most UHFs will have a pretty broad channel range that you can choose from. The next thing I want to go through is forward drive etiquette. This is something that I personally choose to follow. It may be different for every single person you talk to, but little things that I try to keep in mind, which I think just makes the overall forward driving experience great for everybody, and it also makes it really friendly. Like you may pass someone that may end up helping you at some point down the track, and I think that's always really good to know. So I always wave to people. That's just I think common courtesy. If I'm on a forward drive track, even if I'm on a highway, not necessarily in cities, but as you go outside of cities, you wave to people. It's just a really polite thing to do, you make some friends, and it just acknowledges those people around you. So that's something that I do. Then when it comes to, I've already mentioned on four-wheel drive tracks, if it's a single or narrow lane, me as a single person, I will move off to the side and let convoys come through. But typically sort of gauge it case by case. If you know, if there's only one vehicle coming towards you and you know you're going towards them, but they've got to pull off, let them pull off. And I think that's the good thing. I typically will indicate. Indicating just gives someone in front of you or behind you just an idea of what the hell you're actually doing. If you're gonna be the person to pull off, I'll just chuck my belinker on so that that person coming towards me knows, hey, she's gonna jump out of the way, and vice versa. I think indicating when you're on the beach, for example, or if you're in an open section, whether it be sand dunes, beach driving, whatever it might be, when you're on the beach, especially, and I've had this happen where people will be coming towards me, and the road rules typically will say that you stick to your left. That as a general rule is the same for sand driving, unless it's not safe to do so. So obviously, you know, if you're on the water line and the person has got to drive on soft sand to get onto the left, who cares? They can drive on the soft sand. It's not your job to drive into water to get out of their way, but always go to the left where safe to do so, but also just indicate. Indicate what you are doing, and then on the sand, especially, if you plan on just stopping for no reason, I've done it before with you know putting the drone up and down, I will try to put my hazard lights on where it's appropriate to do so. So, once again, just always indicating to people around you what you're actually doing, and then just give them a wave to say thanks more than anything. Even just using your UHF as well. If you're on a section that maybe there's a blind spot or if there's a hill. I have done this in where was it? There was a spot out in Queensland called the Big Sand Hill. Jump on the UHF and just check, hey, is anyone at the top of this? Is anyone coming out of this sand dune? Is there anyone that I need to be aware of so that I can jump onto this track? The same goes for Fraser Allen, like there's a lot of places that you'll typically communicate on the radio just to see what's going on. I use my drone a lot for this as well because sometimes I may not have anyone on the UHF, but I'll chuck the drone up just to see if other cars are coming down. That can be a really helpful one, but I don't expect everyone to be carrying a drone around just to check track conditions. Then when it comes to just tailgating, just give people space, especially if you are following someone on an incline heel or coming down, give them space. That way, if they need to slow down, if they need to take their time, they don't feel that pressure of you riding their ass. No one wants that. Don't be that guy, please. Like for the love of God, give people space. Then when it comes to if someone behind you, let's say if they are moving at a faster pace than you, or maybe if you can tell they've got a bit more experience, or maybe they're just being an arrogant asshole, just pull over, just pull over and let them through because I would rather my experience be a positive one than have someone up my ass the whole time just being an absolute asshole. Like that's where they obviously need to be better, but just give them the space as well. Just let them go, let them just get on with their day, and hopefully they're not assholes to everyone that they pass by. The last three that I want to mention is where it is safe to do so, always try to offer people help. And I know I've spoken about this in a lot of regards where I've refused to help people, I have helped people, or I have in a previous episode when I was talking about traveling safe solo, I've also said that in some cases if it's not safe, I wouldn't help people. And this is where I think it's common courtesy to check if people are okay, but obviously always do so within your parameters of being safe. If you don't have the ability to help them or if you don't feel safe helping them, jump on a radio, see if you can get someone else to help them. But if you always have the ability, if someone's pulled over, if someone looks like they need help, if they're flagging you down, just slow down, give them a thumbs up, check in, make sure they need help, and just if you need to help them, do so within your capabilities. If that means you're getting out and you're digging out with them, if that means that you feel comfortable attaching the two vehicles and recovering someone, that is all a really great one. It's just sportsmanship more than anything. Just try to help people where possible, but on the flip side, if you need help, don't be an arsehole. And then when it comes to track conditions, this is where once again we come full circle back to our tire pressure. We don't want to tear tracks up, and we can do this by not bringing our tire pressure down appropriately, or maybe we just, you know, doing donuts in the sand, whatever it might be. Try to be courteous to other people, don't completely shred up tracks so that no one else can get through safely, or someone else has a really bad experience because you've decided to, you know, not do the right thing. And then last one, this is for forward driving, this is for off roading, camping, whatever it might be, but leave no trace. Don't throw your shit out the window. If you're smoking, don't throw your butts out, don't throw garbage out. Where possible, try to pick up garbage as you go, and just we want to make This space is great for everybody and also great for future as well. We want to make sure that you know for us to go out and enjoy national parks and beaches and all these places, we need to respect it, otherwise, it's only gonna hurt us later because they will close shit down because we haven't respected them. And it's not everyone, but it definitely is people. Hold other people accountable as well. If you see a bad behavior, if it's safe to do so, call people out for it, but try to be the best version of yourself in those circumstances as well. So I know this is a really broad conversation and topic, and it's one of those things that you could go on for days trying to learn all this stuff, and as I said, I'm no expert in this, but what I could offer as advice is that if you don't have the means to go out and do a course, or maybe it's just not something that you care to do, join communities. That is the biggest advice, whether it be Yeah, the girls, or you know, if you've got a gym and you're joining a gymney group or a local four drive, or you go to a four-drive park, there are so many really cool things, and not only is it really healthy for us to create these social networks, but it's also a lot of fun as well. So get out there, learn, learn within your own parameters, do a course, learn off of other people, watch people's YouTube videos, like there's so many resources out there. I myself will continue to learn as well, like that's kind of half the fun of it. So hopefully this has been helpful to somebody. And um, yeah, if there's any tips or tricks that you can give me as well, please feel free to send me a message. And whatever platform you're listening to this or even watching on YouTube, just make sure you do subscribe and I will chat to you all next week.