On September 16, we found ourselves to be the proud new owners of a 2002 Nissan Xterra, which we have christened "Ruby." Now Ruby had a few quirks when we bought her, and prior to driving her anywhere except home, we had some maintenance to do. She was leaking oil, primarily from the passenger side valve cover, so we replaced the gasket, cleaned up as much as we could, and topped up the oil.
After that minor repair, it was time to head out to explore some backroads... really see what she's made of!
We drove from Victoria out to Diversion and Bear Dams. Following the BC-14 out to Jordan River, Ruby was pretty underpowered on the high speed straightaways and climbs. But don't worry, she made up for it quickly when we turned off the beaten track.
The roads out to Diversion Dam were well trafficked and well maintained. We stopped briefly at the dam and then carried on to Bear Dam. The track past Diversion quickly deteriorated with the wet conditions. Ruby performed really well though and we never even had to take her out of 2WD.
We spent an hour exploring the area around the dam and taking some photos with our Mavic Air 2. It was a cool spot that neither of us had been before (neither of our cars would have made it) and we are really excited to get to more new spots!
One adventure down, lets check some more off with this adventure rig!