Travel Swellness: Off-roading with Land Rover Canada #Hibernot

February 24, 2016

A couple of weeks ago, I set off on a winter getaway with Land Rover Canada to Montebello, which is about an hour drive from Ottawa. It’s the second year I’ve taken part in their #hibernot adventure and I was really excited since winter in Toronto can be such a drain mentally. (And I say that even though I usually get to escape TO pretty regularly!). I really, really dislike being cold, walking through slush, boots ruined by salt, grey skies, bone-chilling winds, the whole lot of it. So anytime I can escape the city or make use of winter in a fun way (by going skating at Nathan Phillips Square, like I did last week), I do.

 

I’d never been to Chateau Montebello, a Fairmont property, and it’s quite majestic. It’s the world’s largest log cabin and there’s an impressive giant fireplace and chimney in the centre of the lobby area.

The stay was filled with winter activities like snowshoeing, sleigh ride and curling, and as (bad) luck would have it, we had to cancel several activities because the weather was too warm. Such as dogsledding. Sigh. Dogsledding is a pretty awesome experience (I got to try it in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan two years ago.)

We also of course got to try out a very sleek fleet of five Range Rovers. In Montebello is one of four Land Rover Experience Driving Schools. When you purchase one of their cars, you receive a three-hour lesson at one of their schools and this one in Montebello is considered the best one as it feature 44 kilometres of trails and there’s a particularly difficult route called La Croche, which features rocks at a 45-degree angle (thankfully, we did not attempt La Croche!).

We off-roaded in the cars for a couple of hours and I went first in the Range Rover I was in and here’s what I learned:

• “As slow as possible, as fast as necessary,” is the key to off-roading. Let me tell you, even though I did it fairly successfully, I’m still figuring out what that means!
• When you off-road you should try to veer very slightly to the left in order to stay on course. Drivers naturally will steer slightly to the right so you need to correct for this.
• Move the driver’s seat up closer to the wheel so that you can view better the front of the vehicle.
• Also, you don’t want the armrest in the way when off-roading so push the driver’s armrest up.
• Range Rovers feature Terrain Response. This is a patented system that allows you to select different modes so that your car will perform its best depending on the type of surface. It’s been more recently improved to incorporate Terrain Response 2 Auto, and this means you let the car sense and adjust its settings itself. You (the driver) can override this manually though to put it in a specific mode if you wish. How I got to test out Terrain Response? As I drove up a steep incline and was just cresting the hill, I let go of pressing on either the gas and brakes as per my instructor…and I let the car take care of controlling its movement over the snowy hill. At first it was terribly scary to essentially let go of control of the car temporarily but after one or two times of trying it, I was confident in the Range Rover doing its thing and keeping us all safe.

Off-roading and other cold weather Hibernot activities complete, we packed up, pulled on our parkas and said au revoir to Montebello.Thanks for making winter fun, Land Rover Canada! Can’t wait to see what’s in store next winter

How are you “hibernot”-ing this winter?

Need some hibernot inspiration? To watch a video snippet of our winter adventure, click the photo below!

Filed under: Travel Swellness

Tags: Chateau Montebello, driving school, hibernot, Land Rover, Land Rover Experience, Montebello, off road, off roading, Range Rover, road trip, snowshoeing, Terrain Response