Feature: Land Rover Freelander 2 in Morocco

Unlike most other forms of off-roading, driving on sand calls for speed - and plenty of it. If you're not aggressive enough on the throttle, you'll just dig yourself deeper into the shifting granules and, before you know it, your only way out is through the sunroof.

Understandably, because of the unique properties of the surface, you can't drive any old car on sand without first taking some extra measures. Off-road experts recommend dropping the tyre pressures to increase the car's footprint on the sand and spread the weight of the car out. You can also fit special sand tyres, which vary from the nearly smooth to help you to glide across the surface to ones with paddles incorporated into the tread to help dig the sand out of the way.

We, however, have done nothing of the sort. Our car is a box-fresh Freelander 2 with standard road tyres on 18" alloys. It's a manual diesel - all-important for the low range grunt needed for adventures off-piste - and as it's a top spec HSE model it comes with Land Rover's Terrain Response system. At £30,935 it's not cheap, but it is fitted with all manner of luxury items, including full leather trim, automatic climate control and an Alpine surround sound six-CD player.

All that's required is the twist the Terrain Response knob so it points to a little picture of a cactus and hit the soft stuff. At this point, it's probably worth pointing out that we're in Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, rather than a windswept beach in Norfolk. Why? Well, Land Rover wanted to showcase its new baby in some pretty demanding conditions and Morocco has an ideal mix of freshly-laid tarmac, rutted roads, gravel tracks and a fair bit of sand. The increased air temperature and dry dusty conditions also means the engine will work quite a lot harder.

• Next : Welly on the beach

• Back to Features