Four Wheel Drive High Country Trip 2005
Saturday October 29 2005
Geelong Friday - Geoff, Rosemarie, Paul & Imogen arrived in two vehicles the Nissan Turbo Four Wheel Drive and the Ford Falcon XR6
SedanGeelong Saturday – Geoff, Don and Imogen departed at 6am (little earlier than last year) without breakfast, just a cup of tea, cup of coffee in a take-away mug and a soft drink and headed to
Melbourne, the first stop was McDonalds restaurant on the Western ring road for breakfast egg & bacon muffin and another cuppa, take-away, travelled to the Hume H/Way, turned off at
Tallarook thru to
Trawool,
Yea and followed the
Goulburn H/Way to
Mansfield
The road was very busy with plenty of four-wheel drive vehicles. We arrived at
Mansfield at about 9.10 am and the town was packed with people they were preparing for a big carnival.
We fueled up and headed off about 10 minutes out of town Geoff phoned Robbo and procured a GPS location “
Camp Site Crazie” address No 3 Road Razor Back. 6.3 Ks Circuit Road. Alpine National
Park
“ What a marvelous piece of equipment this is just follow the dot on the screen”.
We arrived at
Camp Crazie around 10 am without any worries we met Adam & Kirsten, Allan & Lyn, Callum & Tegan, Ken & Deirdre. We enjoyed another cuppa with a chat of what and where we were going to travel through the high lands.
Ken was busy turning his 4-wheel drive Caravan into a bus, with a winch he then tried hard to pull a tree down by winding his car up to it, but no it didn’t happen. You know it was a pretty good-looking vehicle, plenty of switches and plenty of lights to play with, every thing including the kitchen sink. No doubt spending many hours getting it all together. All vehicles reduced the pressure of air in the tyres, this allowing for more traction.
About ¼ to 11 we departed, Adam & Kirsten leading in their Holden Jackaroo, Geoff [now known as BONZ] Nissan Turbo Diesel 4X4, Ken & Deirdre, Toyota 75 Series Troop Carrier, [now looking quite smart like a truck.] and Allan, Lyn, Callum [about 4 YOA} & Tegan [about 5] driving a Land Cruiser [
well equipped for the journey & for sale] all vehicle were in radio contact and were able to talk with each other making it an interesting drive.
The leader Adam driving and Kirsten with the radio advising the condition of the road, sharp turn right or left, steep rises etc. Sometimes Adam would also have a go at directions but he didn’t know his left hand from his right. The first stop was to be pineapple flat, Don’t remember seeing that but we up
Mount Stirling, seeing Clear
Hill Hut,
Peters corner, Kings Hut and a lot of exciting
King River Crossing and a lot of people camped on the river. Bonz loves the mud and the
water we nearly lost the number plate thru the crossing.
Adam didn’t get his photo taken thru the first crossing, so he left his camera in my care returned back to the other side and come thru again, yes we did take a couple of photos.
Lunchtime we stopped at beautiful
Lake Cobbler it was a muddy track to get there Allan picked up a big pile of mud on his front number plate, Bonz took photos of the mud design on his
wheels, Ken parked out of the way, not show his off and Adams wasn’t to bad. Good news for Holden.
After lunch they decided to continue on around the lake, leading again by Adam then Ken followed he was driving in 2 wheel drive went through some deep mud the
wheels spun, he was bogged, he sorted out some of the gears he had in the box, and moved out very slowly as the truck, the caravan, the troop carrier,
well, the vehicle was on about 45 degree angle, He did a good job of driving, because it did look like it was going to lay down in the mud. Allen & Lyn had quite a laugh about how Bonz attacked the muddy patch, Bonz just put the foot down and let it go, the mud and bleep went everywhere. We didn’t travel any further than 100 metres on that track, as there was no road.
We all turned around had a good laugh and return back through the mud again and headed to the top of the mountain and Craig’s Hut. On the road, there was about four vehicles in front held up because one of them had stuck itself on a rock in the middle of the track. Adam & Allen went up to assist and they lifted it off, [Strong aren’t they].
The road to the top of the mountain was closed so we continued onto Craig’s hut, it got very cold and within a few minutes the cloud had covered the hut and it started to rain. A shame because there was another wedding there and this would have spoiled their day.
We left and headed for the ring road and we drove this to the corner were the group left to return to
Camp Crazie, we said our goodbyes and continued onto
Mansfield aired the tyres up, cleaned the windows and travelled on. The weather had changed with plenty of rain right through to
Melbourne
Another feed at Mackas and off to
Geelong arriving about 9.30 Pm
Thank you Geoffrey and Imogen for a very enjoyable day, this is an experience that not many people have the opportunity of being involved.
To the other people involved, is a pleasure to meet nice people, thanks for your company
Don (Dad or Grumps)
P S
What a Great Trip. - I’ve just worked out why it went so smoothly, their wasn’t any MITSUBISHI TRITON involved, although I did miss Wombats comments and remarks etc