Can you dig it?

Tom Bird gets acquainted with the art of the shovel as he ventures into the desert with the LR2.

Having an off-roader opens up a world of possibilities. Driving out into the desert with a few mates, a coolbox full of water and enough food to feed a small army is something that you may like to do at the weekend.

But, do you know what you're doing? Book likes Explorer Publishing's UAE and Oman Off-Road Explorer have opened up the uncharted territories to huge audiences, but they don't come with any expert tuition, leaving people stuck in the sand using the book as a shovel.

'I hate that book', says Assad Massoud who is Land Rover Experience trained and has worked with a number of the desert tour companies in Dubai.
'Too many people get themselves a 4x4, buy the book and then go straight into the desert without any proper training.'

I have to admit that I own a copy of the UAE book, but I've only used it to find trails in the mountains and wadis as I've had experience in those terrains, however I've always avoided anything that mentioned desert.

I have driven in the sand a few times, but my previous forays into the shifting granules have involved rather too much digging, sweating and cursing for my liking.

This explains why I'm in our long-term LR2 with Assad giving instruction from the passenger seat and there's an LR3 hovering in the background acting as a support car, with the necessary shovel and winch should I get stuck - which as you can see from the opening image, I did.

Once you know what you're doing, driving on sand isn't actually very difficult, so long as you remember to follow a few basic rules. The most important is to partially deflate your tyres - during our trip we reduced the pressure of all four wheels down to 18psi.

Assad explains, 'this increases the footprint of your tyre on the sand and helps you to float on top of the surface, rather than dig into it. In really soft stuff you can go as low as 6psi - but then you've got to be careful not to damage the tyres.'

Assad recommends carrying your own compressor as you can then swiftly reinflate your tyres once back onto tarmac - the ones at petrol stations are more often than not out of order, or extremely busy.

When driving on sand, momentum is key. As is a smooth application of throttle and brakes.