BEACH SHAKEDOWN

THIS ELDERLY COUPLE IS IN NEED OF A TWEAK OR TWO, FOLLOWING A DAY SPENT ON MORETON ISLAND’S SOFT SAND.

- MATT WOOD

“A AARGH! I just landed on my nuts!” The eldest had one hand clinging grimly to the Jesus bar of my FJ40 and the other gripping his nether regions.

That pretty much sums up off-roading in a classic, leaf-sprung, short-wheelbase 4x4. Regardless of testicular discomfort elsewhere, I was having a ball. The loaded FJ was pitching and bucking its way through the soft Moreton Island sand with admirable aplomb. The ride for anyone not actually holding onto a steering wheel was admittedly pretty rough, though.

The idea for a Moreton escape had been brewing for a while, but we had three young adults to transport – the maximum seating capacity of my Cruiser was three and my Perentie two. So we decided to take both cars.

I was both thrilled and terrified to take my precious FJ to Moreton – thrilled to get it dirty, terrified of damaging it. So I Lanotec’ed the crap out of it to reduce the impact of the salty environment on the chassis and panels of the Cruiser.