Dangerous distractions

One of the temptations I constantly fight during much of the driving I do is the desire to enjoy the view. All too often something spectacular is trying to catch my attention, but narrow, twisty roads are notoriously unforgiving of lapses in concentration.

This morning was a rare treat. I was alone in the van on a empty mountain track with the sun breaking through the clouds, bringing the snowscape to life. The view was amazing, although it made for a very stop-start decent as I kept stopping to take photographs. As usual, these fail to fully capture the beauty, but they have a good go.

With the track completely covered in snow, I also took the opportunity to check how our van would handle emergency stops, the odd swerve or two and generous tugs on the handbrake. Over the next few months I'm likely to do a lot of snow driving so I figured a bit of foreknowledge about any quirks wouldn't hurt. While I don't plan to make handbrake turns a habit I'm happy the report that our trusty Volkswagen Transporter is a very predictable performer under pressure. I won't deny the whole assessment process was a lot of fun: here's to sunny snow days up a mountain!

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anyone for Battenberg?

10 things we learned in 10 years of adventure

Happy: we didn't make this!