Story by: Sonja Palomino Photos by: Janet Poelsma

It’s the Day After Tomorrow in Davenport, Florida. Today is February 16 at the Wallaby Ranch, the new site for the Florida Winter Roundup. It’s a freezing Friday night. Now I know what you’re thinking… freezing…in Florida…yeah, right. Really, it was freezing! As the sun dropped, so did the temperature. By 11:00pm, frost had covered the tents of the assembled enthusiasts. Some gathered around the blazing group campfire to join in warm conversation about the day’s events. Several of us remained by the fire for several hours, mostly out of fear of walking away from the heat just to go into a cold tent and praying that your sleeping bag will be thick enough to keep in the body heat. Remember, we are Florida folk. At about 3:00am we stoked the fire by adding several large logs hoping that in the morning we would be able to get it going with little effort. That night, the mercury kept dropping and didn’t stop until it was at 23 degrees. So much for our warm and fun in the sun Florida off-roading event!

Earlier that morning, when it was much warmer, we brought our ’04 Discovery II and our ’67 Series II-A Land Rover, and joined over 300 Land Rover enthusiasts and 70 Land Rovers at the 6th annual Florida Rover Roundup. After five years of riding the trails in the Ocala National Forest, we decided a change of scenery would be nice. Wallaby Ranch is a world famous hang gliding school located in central Florida near Walt Disney World. It sits on over 500 beautiful acres. Over the past several years, Malcom Jones, the proprietor of the ranch, has hosted dozens of Land Rover customer appreciation days for dealerships throughout Florida. This year, his spectacular locale proved the perfect spot for our event.

One of the benefits of this property is the seemingly unlimited amount of land The existing trails had names such as Proving Ground, Trek Trail, Safari Trail, and Emu. These trails consistently challenged the stock Land Rovers and the novice drivers, particularly after a good rain; however, this year we have been in a drought and all the trails that are usually under water were bone dry. Knowing that the chance of enough rain to soak the trails was unlikely, we altered some of the existing trails to make them more challenging, and even built a new one. We focused on improving the Trek Trail to use for our trials competition. Many obstacles were added and the trail was extended. This trail was designed to push the limits of the vehicles without incurring any damage.

We named our new trail “Jungle Trek.” This trail we built in a low lying area of the property that is usually under water. With the dry conditions, we were able to get in and remove all the trees that had fallen from the hurricanes over recent years. The entrance to the trail was a large mud hole. Friday night, everyone was able to get through by either powering through or hugging the edge. By noon on Saturday this was not the case. After a lot of spinning Mud-Terrains the mud hole became impassible. Only those with a winch dared to take this path; the rest chose to take the bypass. The bypass, although drier, was narrower and proved to be a technical challenge to many. Besides the enhanced trails and unlimited camping area, moving the Roundup to Wallaby Ranch proved to have other benefits as well. The biggest one being that we were able to set up competitions that all the participants could enjoy. That just was not possible the years before on public property.

Saturday morning brought hope of a warm day. The sun was shining; people started coming out of their tents and RV’s to see just how much frost had accumulated on everything. Some joked wondering if anyone had an ice scraper. Ice scrapers in Florida are about as common as snow chains.

As the frost melted away and the temperature climbed, the blood in the veins of the competitors started to flow. After the morning drivers meeting, they hurried to sign up for the events they wanted to compete in.

The first event was the Boomerang GPS Challenge. It was limited to ten vehicles. The teams would have two hours to locate all the way-points and return to camp. The winning team took about 45 minutes while others took the entire two hours. Dave Zymowski of Orlando and his team took the gold in this event. Dave had plenty of time for a victory lap around the campsite in his ’98 Discovery Series II in full G-4 regalia, well before any of his competition arrived. After lunch, we had the Little Jackeroo children fun time. It started with a three legged race. The children picked their partners and off they went trying to be the first to cross the finish line, which happened to be a snatch strap. We even had several mamma and papa Jackaroos trying their luck in an effort to bring home the gold. Then off to learn some recovery techniques. With assistance from there parents, the smallest jackaroos learned how to hook up a recovery strap. The older children thought this would be easy until we introduced a blindfold. This may be useful someday when your recovery points are buried in soupy mud, heck, somebody has to hook up. Our favorite part of the children’s activity is when Jeff Wait had all the children pose for a picture on his ‘93 Range Rover. Although modified and used for off-roading, I believe this is the most abuse it gets. There are kids everywhere! On the roof rack, hanging out windows, standing on the bumpers all trying to catch the attention of the cameras. This has become a tradition of our event and next year we just may have to add another Rover to accommodate the growing number of children that attend the Rover Roundup.

While we were still setting up the course for the Aussie Trials Competition, Land Rovers of all types started to line up. Everything from a stock Series II-A driven by it original owner, Gerry Atchrich, to heavily modified Defender 90s, tackled the challenge. As the drivers watched, you could tell that they were driving the course mentally before it was their turn. All waited for their chance at a sweet victory, the ones with the modified trucks knowing that they had the upper hand on the unmodified ones. In the end, it came down to one thing, driver skill. William Aguillon, Port St. Lucie, proved to be the master of patience. He took first place in the Trials competition, winning with precise driving in his stock 2004 Discovery.
Only the most competitive enthusiasts signed up for our final competition. The only modification required was a winch. The teams consisted of a driver and his navigator (aka. grunt). Adrenaline started flowing as the teams sat waiting for their chance at fame. At the word “Go” they all jumped out, pulling free-wheeling winch lines to an anchor vehicle. Between the winding of the winches, careering timbers, removing a tire, a combination of carrying and rolling the tire a great distance over a hill and back to see who would be the first to end the competition. With lots of sheer physical exertion, all competitors made it across the finish line. All in all, the task took just over 20 minutes to complete and the competion was won by Dimitri and Ricardo Mundarain. Dimitri lives in Boynton Beach and arrived in a 2004 Discovery II, also in G-4 Tangerine Orange.

I guess this type of thing just runs in the Mundarain’s blood. We have already heard rumors that they will be back next year to defend this prestigious title. Pre-event training will be a must for next year’s event. We guarantee it!

After all the excitement, it was time to slow down and enjoy some wonderful Southern BBQ prepared by Salty Hog. This went great with the live entertainment provided by Clint and Chad. Following dinner, we set up for our annual charity auction. Thanks to Rovers North and many other vendors that donated items, we were able to raise over $2,100 for The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 100% of the auction proceeds are donated to charity each year.

Trail rides continued late into the evening. One group remained out later then they planned when the differential on a Range Rover went bust. After a couple hours of towing and winching through the tight and technical part of Jungle Trek, they made it back safely. It had rained early Sunday morning before sunrise. Luckily it was nowhere near as cold as the night before. Although, it would have made it interesting to wake up with snow on the Land Rovers. Then we would have had to change the name to The Florida Winter Romp. See you next year. It will be warmer – we promise!

[If you are in Florida and would like to ride some trails or are interested in next years Palomino’s Rover Roundup then go to www.floridaroverownersgroup.org to contact us.]

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