Trial by Fire

In my 12 years of driving, I have never towed a trailer. Not even a little one. So when a friend who is building a house asked me to help him move some timber for the house he is building, I agreed with a little trepidation. They have a rough farm track rather like ours and he'd broken his parents VW van by towing the first load up there. with it.

First I had to actually attach a towball to the Discovery, which was easy done by my local Land Rover gurus. I was also pleased (and surprised) that all the electrics actually worked.

The trailer was pretty massive and more than doubled the length of the Discovery. You could feel it there when it was empty, and it was rather disconcerting at first. Just when I thought I was getting used to it, four tons of timber were loaded and things got interesting. It was HEAVY, and also stuck a good six feet out of the back as well. Fortunately the trailer had it's own brakes and the Discovery easily coped. It was an interesting journey as the usual bouncy ride became wallowy and sedate. The most worrying part of the journey was going down a 1in 4 hill, but that wasn't too bad, we just jammed it in 1st gear and used the engine to brake.

I had to reverse it twice, but managed reasonably OK. It's rather weird at first, you basically have to do everything against your normal instincts.

So yay, I can now tow a trailer.