So this post has been a few weeks coming, and I assure you, it would have been posted earlier if I could work out what to call it. Titles are important you know.

Allow me to set the scene for you... Long time readers of lifeofsuch, will no doubt be familiar with the absolute disaster that was the first 'Stockton Beach 4WD Adventure', appropriately titled 'how not to die...'. On that trip, Josh's X-trail (Which isn't a '4WD' at all... it is no more than a plastic lie), decided to take us out into the middle of the largest strip of coastal sand dunes in Australia, and then break down more frequently than Britney Spears... as can be seen in the photo below. The X-trail, bogged down, overheated, and stranded out on the sand. Awesome.

The crappy 4WD system would crap itself if it even thought it was heading more than 10kms from the nearest cafe that could serve a "Double shot, half decaf, soy latte'. Josh soon realised that his Nissan X-trail is the Boy George of off road vehicles. I even came up with a mathematical formula to explain the event. It went something like this.

(Sand + 4WD X-trail) = (Overheated 2WD X-trail) = Us stranded in the middle of what for all intensive purposes is a large, hot, sandy freaking desert.

Leaving the past behind is one thing. Leaving behind your mate who just dug you out of the sand to run 3 kms though soft sand to catch you up as you get towed off the beach by a rescue 4WD, while deleting ALL the pictures off his phone that captured the very moment you got yourself bogged down and blocking 5 other 'real' 4WD's is something all together different.

Josh soon realised that his Nissan X-trail is the Boy George of off road vehicles.

Anyway, back to the story. Which really isn't much of a story. After being immasculated by his plastic lie of a 4WD, one Joshua Hinton went out and bought what can be defined as a 'real 4WD'. A Toyota Hilux. And then got into it and took it straight out onto Stockton beach. To be honest, things started well. We drove over stuff, Josh got lost and couldn't find the ocean, we drove over some more stuff, and then up a little sand dune. For the record, a Range Rover had attempted the same dune, but was sent sprawling backwards time after time. The Hilux did it first go.

But then things went horribly wrong. And I mean horribly wrong. Firstly, I was given the opportunity to drive the Hilux on the beach. Secondly, I decided to give way to some other 4WD's, and thirdly... well. The third problem is at the core of why I have had such trouble naming this post. In fact, I have a whole list of titles I could have used.

"Everything I touch breaks... can I touch your face now?"

"The tale of two pricks."

"Stockton = 2 - Josh's 4WD's = 0."

"First an Xtrail, now a Hilux... next time bring a god damn quadbike."

"How I ruined everyones daytrip adventure... again."

"How I ruined everyones daytrip adventure... without being obscene or inappropriate."

"The best laid plans of mice and men can still be thwarted by little pricks."

"Show us your fat spare tyres."

"Why you should never ever ever ever, on any circumstances give way on a beach."

"Never underestimate the danger of a small prick - just ask Jamie Lyne Spears."

As you can tell, I went with 'the tale of two pricks'... because unfortunately on that beach that day, the path of those two pricks crossed, and destiny was changed forever. One of those pricks was driving the Hilux, staying left to give way to two other 4WD's on the sand about 50 metres up the beach, and the other prick had somehow buried itself in the sand, and was just waiting to bring me down. And it did. As you can clearly see, the prick I met was in fact a metal stake, buried 4 feed deep in the sand, which just a razor sharp point sticking out from the sand. And as you can probably work out from the picture below, I just clipped it with the sidewalls of the massive Hilux tyres. Both tyres on the left hand side went down.

As soon as I brushed it, I knew something was wrong, because there was more hissing coming from the tyres than an unhappy audience at an Amy Winehouse concert. And yes, the tyre marks in the sand are mine.

So, with the Hilux lurching to one side, we waited and waited in middle of the sand dunes, kilometres from any help or rescue, with only an esky full of alcohol and leftovers for company.

Once we were done waiting, we did some more waiting, and decided to attempt to at least change one of the tyres and see if we could limp our way off the sand. Someone asked if we could just go get another tyre. But apparently being stranded in the middle of Australias largest sand dunes, in the middle of nowhere, with no way to move is not conducive to tyre shopping. Oh, and because heaps of auto traders are open in the middle of nowhere late on a Sunday afternoon. Did I mention we were in the middle of nowhere?

Changing the tyre didn't go so well either. We jacked the Hilux up just fine, and could walk all over the tray while it was jacked up, but then a peculiar thing happened. As soon as we took the wheel off, the Hilux became a giant wombat, and began burying itself deep down in the sand. You know, if I listened more in Sunday school I would have remembered something important about not building houses on the sand, unless all your builders are models wearing nothing more than small bikinis or something.

Hmm... X-trail? Hilux? Can you see the similarities?

We were forced to call a rescue service for help, and some hours later towards the end of the day as the sky clouded over and it started to rain, our help arrived. An older man drove up to us, with a creepy laugh, a pronounced limp and missing fingers. He would look at us, mumble and laugh and make comments like "I really don't know how much this is going to cost you...", and "I've never had to do something like this before...", and "I wonder what I will charge you for this." and then he would tilt his head over and look the two girls up and down like someone who has done time. The whole time he was there I kept having strange flashbacks of "Wolf Creek" for some unknown reason, and had picked out a little thicket of bushes in the sand that I would make a run for if things went bad.

So hours (and hundreds of dollars) later, we arrived back in Sydney... tired, annoyed, poor and somewhat pissed off because some stupid prick had ruined the outing for the day. And if in this rather long jumbled post there is some moral to be found, it would be that you should never, ever, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of small pricks. Especially when they are driving.