Hi All
Just a short report on the day trip to Mt Disso last Sunday 1/2/04.
I have had a few requests about how it went / what happened etc
We had a big turn out there was me and my son Andrew in the Troopy and there was Gary (aka - Garyinoz) on his lonesome in the Kia Sportage.
Diamond piked due to his poor plumbing work finally catching up with him and apparently flooding his house, Toonfish had some family commitments and I don't know what happened to Rob. maybe he heard rumours about me and bog holes and decided he did not want to be near me ????????
I had arranged to meet Gary in
Broadford at about 10.30 and we proceeded to Disso via Scanlons Rd I was heading for a good track that I did with Toonie and Diamond last time called Ladder track, the only ladder I could see on the map was called "The Ladder", turned out to be a good track to start with but was not the Ladder track I was looking for.
We had no rain but the tracks were damp and slippery in areas.
Coming out of The Ladder we turned right onto Clonbinane Rd and after scanning the tracks in the area on the GPS/Laptop found the Ladder track starting at the interesection of Pipeline Trk and Clonbinane Rd.
Very steep track with a very deep water rut, Cut up the middle I went first up the widest side being the left side and had no hassles for about 1 km and then found that I had to cut across the rut to get to the right side it was here that I discovered that diff locks are a great invention.
Cutting across at an angle dropped two diagonal wheels in the rut and left the other two on the high spots very slippery area and I was sliding backwards at a diagonal I already had the rear locker on so flicked the switch for the front and immediatly felt the front wheels grab and pulled me straight out, Phew.
Gary picked a better spot to cross and had no problems.
It's certainly easier to follow and watch the front guy get in the bleep first.
We drove around enjoying the scenery and picking a few nice tracks Phone Trk, Phosphate Rd nothing to difficult, stopped at Blairs Hut for lunch (No hut that I could see) after an easy lunch we did Engine
Camp Rd, Upper Plantation, Morrisson and found ourselves on Cottrell Rd at about 4 pm.
We just disscussed heading out and
home when I spied the unnamed extension of Cottrell Rd and decided to have one last go.
I shall call this track 4 O'clock Trk in honour of the hour that we all seem to think about going
home and then decide to do one last quick 10 minute drive down the last track of the day. (You all get the idea)
This track had a mound built up in front of the driveway so to speak, it also had a track around this mound, I recconed that the Troopy would get hung up on this mound so I went around, Gary on the otherhand decided that the mighty Kia could go over and proceeded to do so until yep ! he got hung up in the middle.
To be fair he did have the two right side wheels on the ground but as you all know without lockers all the drive went to the two off the ground and they spun very niceley indeed and he was going no where.
Good visual lesson to my son about what happens in this situation and why diff locks have a distinct advantage as long as you have decent contact with at least one wheel on the ground.
Anyway I turned the Troopy around and wound out the winch and helped the man of the mound. Kind person that I am.
Good track not obviously used much alot of growth adding to the scratches on the Troopy had to get out and roll a few logs out of the way and finally made Watering Crk Rd and decided to cross this road and keep on going.
Another mound in front of this section to but this time I did try to get over myself and yep you guessed it got stuck on the top not enough contact to get drive on any wheel even with diff locks, so out went the winch cable to the nearest tree and easy as pulled myself of the mound.
This section got real steep and we found quite a number of those diaganol errosion drains cut across this track which made it quite interesting as they were also quite deep.
About 3 km down we came across a couple of trees lying down the middle of the track blocking the way and not really wanting to reverse 3 km back up we decided to winch them of to the side out of the way.
I have to say that it is the nice side effect of 4wd in the forest is the number of good trees to attach your recovery gear to (very convenient)
After
clearing these trees we proceeded further and yep ! another real
big tree across the track.
Gary suggested we build up a ramp either side and go over, my reply was to get the chainsaw out the back and cut it and drag it out with the drag chain.
(I knew I carried that saw for good reason) made the job real easy.
Finally after almost 2 hours we made the bottom of 4 O,clock track, and headed
home.
So much for 10 minutes.
A great location, some good company, a good work out for all the gear and the rain held off so all was almost perfect.
This is a great part of the world. I have been there twice now and enjoyed it immensly both times if anyone want to go back let me know I will go with you.
Oh ! the final good point was that I did not have to get snatched out by the Kia.
That would be embarrising.
Regards
John