espri
Member Since: 07 Nov 2005
Location: Tyrol, Austria
Posts: 387
  
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I had a holiday in Finland last month that started with Land Rover Experience courses on snow and ice – here is a report on that. I have loaded a number of pictures into my gallery. If anyone has any questions, I will be happy to answer them (though I’m going to be away skiing now for a week  , so it may be a little time before I can reply).
This LRE part of my trip was organised by APS, a German company which works along with LRE here and also organises off-road trips to places like Spain, Iceland, Namibia – and even Scotland! Their web site is www.aps-team.de (with an English version). LRE Finland also has a web site (also with an English version), www.lre.fi . Working language for the course in Finland was English.
I flew to Helsinki and met the other course participants there, three Germans (one of them a representative of APS) and an Austrian. A couple of LRE instructors collected us from the airport and drove us to our hotel, Vanajan Linna, an attractive country house set amongst snow-covered trees near Hämeenlinna, about an hour’s drive northwest of Helsinki.
The first day of practice the Winter Level 1 course, started with a theoretical introduction to 4x4 autos, particularly the Disco3. Then we set off into the forest and spent the rest of the day driving up hill and down dale. As well as one Disco3 we used two Defenders for the driving. This worked out quite well, for I and another chap drove the Disco, while the others were more interested in the Defenders.
We had plenty of practice mounting and removing snow chains, König T2 No Problem Model 255 on the Disco3, mounted on all four wheels for off-road driving. Never having driven off-road before, I was very impressed by what the Disco3 (automatic) could do, both uphill and downhill. I did get stuck once but managed the ascent later with a longer run at the hill. The Terrain Response was usually set at the snow setting, sometimes sand. For the steeper hills the gearbox was set in manual mode, second or third gear. One exception for the Terrain Response was when driving through the so-called “elephant’s footprints†(see the photos in my gallery). Here Rock Crawl was selected, so that any wheel hanging cross-axled in the air wouldn’t spin and then damage the chains when it hit the ground again. Our excursions on the forest tracks were interrupted for a picnic lunch, with reindeer goulash.
The driving continued till the late afternoon. A sauna was on the programme before dinner but the others had spotted a ski slope nearby, so we went skiing under floodlights instead.
The second day involved Snow and Ice Driving on a frozen lake. This was probably of more practical interest for me, I felt, for I’m not sure that I’ll ever drive my own Disco over tracks like the ones we had been on the day before. Snow and ice can happen anywhere, though I hope not to drive on roads quite as slippery as that frozen lake! We did the usual sort of thing, driving around cones and such like. There was a race in a Freelander at the end, timed – I didn’t win.
After lunch back at the hotel, the final activity for most participants was a drive on snowmobiles through the forests. We just sat on the machines and set off in the snow, belting over fields and ditches, through the trees at 30-40 kms/hr. There was a break for coffee and sausages in a hut in the middle of the forest. Great fun!
The others only stayed for those two days but I had booked myself for an LRE Level 2 course as well. As it happens, this didn’t seem to add much to what we had done the first day. There were a few new tracks and we also looked at jacking up the car, using the Hi-Lift and Easylift jacks. Since there wasn’t a Hi-Lift available for the Disco3, we did this day on the Defender 110, which was probably the most interesting aspect for me, since I hadn’t driven the Defender the other day.
All in all, I found the courses very interesting and educational. I was also glad that I had tried courses like these before my own Disco arrived. I would recommend them to anyone who wants some fun and experience on snow and ice!
Without flights (which I organised myself), I paid €1,705.00 + an extra €300.00 for the Level 2 course; that covered the courses, other activities and the hotel.
Since I had never been to Finland before, the idea of going for just two real days’ activity seemed too little to me. So, as well as adding the Level 2 day, I later flew up to Lapland and skied at Levi for a few days. The resort is hardly comparable to the Alps for skiing but interesting enough to visit. Quite a number a British families were holidaying in the hotel I stayed at, maybe also enjoying other activities like visits to reindeer farms or snowmobiling. It was blooming cold at times, -14°C, and I did wonder if it was only Brits who would enjoy skiing there  . There are a couple of Women’s World Cup Slaloms there on 10th-11th March, so you might see Levi on television. Then, at the end of my trip, I looked around Helsinki for a day and half, which all made for a fine holiday.
Eric
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 11th Mar 2006 9:01 am |
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