4×4 experience days NW england – recommendations

Hive mind, want to do one of these for my upcoming significant birthday.
Lots on the web, but anyone recommend a particular location/company?
I’m Macclesfield based so anywhere within a couple of hours would be good.

If you book something with Kankku in the S Lakes, you can be the one who always meets me halfway down the Nibthwaite descent.

I did the official one at the Range Rover factory many years ago and it was brilliant.
Halewood have a track, but I don’t know if it’s open to the public.
I would, on the strength of the Range Rover jobbie, point you towards a Land Rover expeience if it’s an official Land Rover experience.

I strongly recommend Kankku, they are nice folk and they can hire you an MOD 90 with twatnav, programmed with a South Lakes safari. I went out with them a couple of times when I owned an MOD 90 and had a great day. They are not afraid of tackling difficult challenging green lanes.

http://www.theconistonhotel.com/4×4.html

Land rover experience have moved from coniston hotel to broughton hall http://www.yorkshire.landroverexperience.co.uk
I’ve cycled a section of the broughton hall 4×4 course and it looks really good.

Bookmarked for the wife’s forthcoming birthday.

Thanks.

APF

The 4×4 course at Conistone Hotel looked very tame (at least the bit next to the A65), I wanted to head round there in our old Renault Clio (just before sending it to the scrap heap)!

We rode along the bit of their new course the other week that’s on the line of the old Skipton-Colne railway – there was one large and long puddle that we chickened out of as we’d no idea how deep it was.

What’s the worst that could happen?

I’ve never fancied the look of the Conistone Hotel one either, although I think they’ve got some other stuff tucked away in the woods out of view.

I did the one at Coniston years ago when my dad bought a new 2009 Freelander and they threw the experience in as a sweetener.

We did the bit next to the A65 – but that is a tiny fraction of the course, most of it it behind the hotel. No way your Clio would get around that!

TBH I wouldn’t pay money for that, it was more setup to show off what the vehicle was capable of, it was a sales pitch really, although an interesting couple of hours. If you show enough interest at a dealer you might score it for free.

Kankuu are not particularly well thought of by local residents. This didn’t help http://forums.lr4x4.com/topic/96469-storm-desmond-profiteering/

I heard they don’t contribute to the upkeep of the green lanes on which they profit, unlike hobbyist clubs.

Thanks folks – keep em coming, especially other options than Kankuu and the Yorkshire Land Rover experience lot 🙂

@wzzz – it wasn’t that the Clio would have been capable of it, more to see the look on the faces of the 4×4 drivers 😉 Once you get in to deeply rutted stuff then you need the clearance, which is one of the main features of off-road vehicles, the Clio would have been a beached, err, car.

Nick the owner of Kankku has offered to reimburse anybody who paid for a ride in one of his vehicles, as you’ll see if you read further down the linked page. His explanation looks sincere to me.

I know them quite well and they are decent folk who are making a living. They are concerned about green lane erosion and wear and they make that very clear when you drive with them. Having owned an Land Rover I also know they are expensive vehicles to run and need extra maintenance after deep wading.

Peckforton castle do a Land Rover experience, your choice of vehicle. Wife got it me for a birthday and taking a brand new discovery bonnet deep through water was entertaining. Lovely hotel too.

Peckforton castle do a Land Rover experience, your choice of vehicle. Wife got it me for a birthday and taking a brand new discovery bonnet deep through water was entertaining. Lovely hotel too.

did that one a few years ago as a guest of Landrover, fantastic, did it in a range rover vogue £88,000 going round the forest up hills down hills, then on road,awesome power the thing had, but only about 10 to the gallon in petrol, also met the wife of a famous mountaineer who lives quite close, also best not to mention the name of Max Kay there.

They also do one near Bala next to a fantastic old hotel one of the first to have hydro electric power when built in the 18 th centuary.

Coinstone still do it just not official Land Rover. I had my marriage reception at the hotel and it was lovely.

Mrs works at Broughton Hall and I believe the official Land Rover one takes in part of the Top Gear episode where it all went wrong.

I notice that Kankku use 2 Mitsubishi pajero swb’s on their adventure drives, they must be to take turns to tow the land rover home! 😆