As we drive on the road from Canberra to Bywong, Brett Quodling raises a hand just high enough so another driver - travelling in the opposite direction quite a distance away over the median strip - sees him and waves back.
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"That's the Jeep wave," Quodling says.
Apparently it's a global phenomenon. People who drive Jeeps wave to other people who drive Jeeps.
As we move along the bitumen road, "soft roading" it in Quodling's words, he points out nearby hills.
They are the clumps of rock and earth forming the landscape that as an a-to-b driver I had come to never notice.
"I see something like that," says Quodling pointing one out, "and I think I'd like to get to the top."
It's a primal urge to climb and conquer.
Quodling is a businessman, a dad, an off-roader and, in the kindest possible way and as he says so himself, a bit of a redneck with a streak of mountain goat.
He likes to go driving in the bush, or as the Americans say, "wheelin'". It'll be a Friday night and a mate will hit Facebook with his urge to go wheelin' and then at a dark, cold service station in Queanbeyan later that night they meet and away they drive in convoy with the next night's family dinner acting as a sort of rough deadline of when they need to return. The sorts of trips where going one kilometre might take 12 hours if parts of the vehicle break off or if the whole machine becomes stuck.
The sort of driving where the winch is used on a regular basis.
On this particular day we're headed to Quodling's home or, more specifically, his backyard.
He owns a block 30 kilometres north-east of the national capital and as we drive in I see he has made some landscaping modifications.
Rocks of the size that used to be lugged around by people in the convict era have been dumped at strategic locations between the trees while dirt has been hollowed out in places and filled with water.
We pull up and change vehicles. Quodling is a Jeep man and he owns many of them. The vehicle we exit is essentially his town car. The one we get into is his highly-accessorised vehicle for off-roading. It's a $50,000 vehicle with another $50,000 worth of additions.
And then he aims what is a hard-working man's yearly salary at the boulders and the ditches and off we go.
It's not as haphazard as what I thought it would be. He drives surgically, picking his lines so the four-wheel-drive makes it over the obstacles without bottoming out.
"It's not just about hitting the accelerator and hoping you can get over it," he says.
As he drives impressively, I'm reminded of the fact I can't drive a manual. Somewhere inside my manhood is dented. Have I been leading a soft-roading life?
The Jeep is an American car that comes with its own sub-culture. Apparently it's the most accessorised vehicle in the world. Buy one and soon you'll be paying to have it lifted so it can go further off road.
I note Quodling has another Jeep in his shed even bigger - and I mean higher - than the one we bumped around in on his training track. The particular vehicle that had gone past the point where a four-wheel drive looks like a four-wheel-drive and more resembled a monster truck.
He tells me it can't legally travel on public roads, unless it's towed of course.
So how far does Quodling take his Jeep love? His children are named Cody Jack and Ruby. CJ and Rubicon are types of Jeep.
He runs a Jeep shop in Fyshwick. When I arrived at the shop for our day out he opened the bonnet of one old Jeep to reveal it had been transformed into a barbecue.
As I stood looking at the unique hotplate, I realised Quodling represented that group of men whose passion for a particular sort of toy - be it a boat or a car or a model train - was so intense that their stories became fascinating.
He will be one of the 60 or so exhibitors at the aptly-named Big Boys Toys Expo at Canberra's Exhibition Park later this month.
Among the toys will be hot rods, electric bikes, race and rally cars and go karts.
Knowing the event sounds like a bit of an overly-macho gathering, the organisers have on their website created a blog called Crash Test Biggles, written by a woman "to convince all the ladies out there" why they should go. Her theory is that too many don't invest in enough material items for themselves and she writes how buying a mountain bike gave her a healthier life
"We all need time to indulge ourselves every once in a while," she said.
Males and females can judge for themselves whether the schedule interests them.
There will be a flight simulator, a dive tank and fly-fishing demonstrations. Pinball machines will ping as drones, well, drone through the air and there will be that scraping-rolling sound on the footpath as someone rides past on an electric skateboard.
And as Quodling stands at his own Jeep stand, a stranger might walk past and for reasons not clear to those outside the sub-culture, they might exchange a wave.
Fact file
Big Boys Toys Expo Canberra, August 22-23, is a highly interactive event, the ultimate playground for big boys (and girls of course) to see, touch, experience and buy all the toys, tools, gizmos, gadgets, sports and hobbies they've always dreamed of. With more than 60 amazing exhibitors locked in with more coming on board almost daily, the expo will take place over 10,000 square metres at Exhibition Park in Canberra and will have a great sports lounge and bar for visitors to take a break from checking out all the gear on offer.
Event highlights include: taking a ride in a flight simulator; hopping in a dive tank; checking out boats and fly fishing demos; playing the latest pinball machines; American, vintage, offroad and hot-rod cars and trailers; electric skateboards; gym equipment and golf challenges; remote controlled cars, drones and heaps of hobbies; and more!
Proudly supporting Menslink Canberra, Big Boys Toys Expo is an awesome day out for the whole family. Buy tickets online today to beat the queues and save.
