Had a most enjoyable weekend at
Robe traversing Little Dip &
Beachport Conservation Parks leading a group of 11 x 4wd - some experienced and some not so.
Came across a couple of issues
Several cars without Sand Flags, one came around the corner reasonably quickly, saw my very wide eyes, turned around and scooted
Some had crossed the very obvious barricades made of wire rope covered in black poly and supported by permapine stumps and proceeded to try the pristine dunes - real smart ( do I hear more gates ).
Another group went through a big water patch and sucked in enough water to be stopped and were in the process of being towed within their own group (4 x 4wd ), unfortunately there car didn't have enough power to get through the sand so we helped out getting them off the corner, unblocking the track and onto harder ground. The diesel had water in his air filter - what would you do?
Then we heard a distress call from someone stuck on a ridgetop, he could not give us much detail on where he was so we had to play 100 questions to try and locate him, between us and another fellow heading South he was found and recovered - not by us. We lost a good half hour out of our day with the rest of our group waiting for myself and the tail end charlie to return.
Another member of our group who happens to be a mechanic helped the water logged cars to get started and they were driving out as we got back.
A few suggestions
Don't go into the sand dunes without a sandflag
Don't go through water unless you really need to and have prepared your car first
Don't blast through forcing water into your engine compartment
If you are by yourself
please don't try doing big dunes as if you roll and get hurt or you get stuck like this gentleman, no one may know and you may be there a while, in this case in was just before dusk so another 1/2 hour or so and he would have been there for the night
make sure you are aware of where you are - relatively speaking, turns out ( I believe )this guy was in the Millicent Buggy Club grounds
I am so glad that things worked out this time, but this really should be an eye opener for those people.
Another trip leader I came across told me they had to wait for the
Police and Ambulance as a motor cyclist came off his bike earlier in the day, with suspected breaks in both wrists and a broken leg.
If we don't get smarter about what we are doing then I suspect they will just close the gates, I suspect that there have been more fences erected since the last time I went through 12 months ago.
sorry for the rant
cheers