[Richard Coutts-Smith]

Champ Camp 09 has been and gone. All up I think we had 18 Champs and a Series 1 Landy doing some entertaining bush tracks, the odd river crossing and a little bargain hunting.
Also included a smattering of guests from the UK, but it is a long way to come to drown a Champ in a river crossing.
While the Champ is well known for its wading capabilities (6 ft), it has been cunningly designed so that the snorkel in the stowed position will suck up the bow wave in a fairly average crossing. The delights of pumping water out through the sparkplugs, can only be surpassed by finding out that the petrol tank breather also runs into the snorkel: it was amazing how much water was in the filter, pump and carby, when some of the Champs returned to base. A clean out and a litre of Metho into the tank fixed most problems.
Also present was one of 3 known, complete, Civilian Champs, we also saw the reunion the brass ID plates and the Champ they were removed from over 20 years ago, and finding out my Champs ARN finished the week off nicely
Managed to get stuck a few times, purely for the kids benefit, and the veiws were magnificent (Champ after Champ after Champ.....)
My thanks to Malcolm, Peter and Warren (owner of the worlds only Bling Champ) for their outstanding effort in organising Champ Camp 09
Rich