I am starting this thread to post pictures & videos from my offroad escapes with the Freelander 2 (named Flendurica, a name which makes some sense only in Romanian:D)

The most recent offroad trip was last Sunday, when we went from Bucharest to around 3-5km close to Negoiu, the second largest mountain peak in Romania (2,535 meters high). The highest altitude we reached was around 2,150 meters. The entire trip was pretty long, about 500km out of which around 350km onroad. We went as a group, 8 cars out of which one Freelander 2, one Freelander 1 and the rest were offroad prepared cars (Toyota, Suzuki Samurai, one Frontera).

Most of the offroad track was pretty dry, so the fact that I had street tires was not a major disadvantage. However, there was one section where I had to follow an alternate route as the straight one involved climbing through some mud and I didn't have enough traction. The rest of the tour involved dirt roads, some ravines (or draws, I'm not sure what's the proper english word), crossing a river, hill ascent on a long and rocky path and hill descent through a deep forest path.

The Freelander proved to handle the track without any issues. Except for the mud section where my tires were not good enough, the only drawback was the low ground clearance which led (combined with my distraction at one point) to hit a rock and make a bump on the rear sump guard.

And some pictures:

The Track

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Looks a fantastic outing

Moved to correct section too  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Great!!!
Do you have the GPS track too?
I mean in a proper GPS format (gpx, kmz, kml, etc)?

PS: @Nick
Should I understand that my topic about my FL2 should be moved too?
Because most of it is my off-road adventures too...
Which is the difference between "My FL2" and "Off-Roading..." sections?
Should I understand that "My FL2" is only for those who like to use their car only in city and keep their car sparkly shine?

PS2: Sorry Mihai for off-topic...

Many thanks for sharing MihaiB
Looks a great trip.......
JT Upgraded to an ex demo, 7 mth old, Rimini Red/Ebony Napoli Auto HSE on 28th Jan 2011, added roof rails, mudflaps and side strips.
Gone - A great 57 Plate, Auto SE, Bought Feb 2009, Roof Rails and Mudflaps added on purchase. Blue colour, anything but drug dealer black.....

Excellent MihaiB
I envy the freedom you guys have to be able to ride those tracks. Here someone, somewhere owns every bit of ground and even then there's usually a big prohibition sign.

@alex

Moved your post too, as this section is for expeditions, trips out off road, the other is for showing of your car, thought it's better to keep it under one section for those who want to find thing about trips etc  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

@Alex - I have the track from the first part of the trip (uphill). It was recorded by one of the other participants. Here is the link.

@EYorkshire - Yes, this is one of the benefits in Romania, there are still many forestry roads which are somehow open. The legal side is a debate as in many cases they are officially closed. But the offroad community in Romania tries to maintain a good relationship with the forestry authorities, so they help each other. For example, I was just reading the other day of a fire starting near one of the highest roads in Romania (Transalpina). The members of an offroad club in Sibiu county helped the firemen and forestry guys reach those locations and transported materials and crew using offroad vehicles, as the authorities' cars could not drive on that track.

Usually, the offroad community takes much better care of the environment than the people going out for a grill in the forest near the public road...

@npinks - I now have 2 threads in this section, one about the car and its offroad modifications and another one for the offroad trips. Hope this is fine.

brilliant pictures MihaiB, great to see a FL2 doing that kind of stuff

Iain

Looked like great fun.

MihaiB wrote:

@Alex - I have the track from the first part of the trip (uphill). It was recorded by one of the other participants. Here is the link.

Thank you very much!
And the blue one? How did you load it in Google Earth then?

Last time I was in Romania all the roads were like that!

Just joking, but we did horrify our Romanian colleagues by using the backroads to get down to Constanta for the weekend. And there was certainly no mud in the Romanian summer! Great place to own a Land Rover though.

alex_pescaru wrote:

And the blue one? How did you load it in Google Earth then?

Nice to see the FL2 offroad. NIce pictures. Looking at the other vehicles, I bet you were the most comfortable!

Last Sunday the Freelander got another chance to go offroad. This time it was near Bucharest, in some of the fields nearby. We passed an area where an annual offroad trial event is organized and we played a bit on the competition track, then we went further, crossed a couple of irigation trenches, enter a bit of forest and then back.

The entire track was quite difficult to be able to complete it, without help, by just one car. Actually, the only car that was able to do it without getting stuck was a heavily modified Nissan Patrol (equiped with 37 inch Simex tires). So you can imagine that the Freelander, with 18 inch rims and winter tires, had some difficulties. However, I did not get stuck any more then the other average cars participating...

And now some pictures. I'll resume to posting only the Freelander pictures, even though some of the pictures with the other cars can describe better the difficulty of the track.

Crossing a steep hill. Did not get stuck

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Nice pictures!
But the FL2 was not designed to cope with some of the extreme conditions here...
And take care that some large mud terain tires are much heavier than normal and some of the FL2 halfshafts (especially the rear ones) or some parts of the drivetrain could protest against it...

Let me tell you what I've saw/read on an Australian off-road forum and liked a lot:
"The best off-roader is not the one who throws himself through anywhere/anything, but the one who looks ahead, analyze the situation and says: "Nope, I can't get/it's not safe through here, I will find another path..." The later one will go much further...

This is why, one day, one of guys from the "pack" we go out, looked at my car and said:
"Hey, your car is without a scratch compared with ours"...
And all of us went the same tracks and my FL2 had its share of tough time...

But enough about that and I hope you won't mind about what I've said....
Have fun with "Flendurica"!