Safe travels for car club

DO you dream of hitting the high country and tackling some of Australia’s best four-wheel-drive tracks?

In its 42nd year, the Bendigo 4WD Club is dedicated to educating and inspiring people to take those roads less travelled.

“Our principal aim is to encourage people of all ages with four-wheel-drives to go out and explore Australia in a safe and sustainable way,” the club’s regional representative Edgar Burtscher said.

The club specialises in training people that may be hitting the tracks for the first time, in anything from a Toyota Land Cruiser to a family SUV.

“We offer training in how to drive your car safely, but also how to do it in a way that does very little damage to tracks,” Mr Burtscher said.

“We try and teach driving techniques that minimise wheel spin and how to drive the car going uphill and downhill so they’re not at risk of sliding.

“Part of the training is also about the environment, not just flora and fauna, but leaving gates as you found them and minimising the dust when you’re driving past other road users, bushwalkers.

Mr Burtscher’s role involves liaising with land managers such as Parks Victoria to ensure that 4WD tracks are well maintained and not damaging the environment.

He said Parks Victoria has also been helpful in educating members about the Traditional Owners of the land they drive on and how to be respectful of them.

The club meets on the second Thursday of every month at the Kangaroo Flat Sports Club and holds day, weekend and extended trips.

Mr Burtscher said the club wants its members and their family to explore what Australia has to offer, from the Bendigo Regional Park to the Northern Territory, South Australia and everywhere in between.

“If you want to get away differently, where you’re a bit more isolated and where you have a special spot which you might be sharing only with a few people, that’s what a club like this is for,” he said.

“You go with a group of people who are really like-minded, we go and seek out these beautiful spots that people with large caravans can’t get into.

“It just means you experience so much more about what Victoria and other states and places have to offer.”