Guys,
Spent the weekend bike riding in
Bendethera
A couple of things of interest - the crossing at Dry Creek is bone dry, save
for a puddle in the middle further down the river - we didn't even get our
tyres wet. Also, we did the ride around the rim of the valley, which takes
you down Mongamula Fire Trail and through that
homestead that they call
Alpine - full of rivers and creeks in there, but every single one of them
was bone dry.
Most of the rivers in the valley itself still had some water, but generally
only 10cm or thereabouts.
We stayed at the pub on Fri night, and there were a couple of ambulances
which flew down the road just after dark - followed by the Southcare chopper
- turns out there were four fellas who had spent some time at the pub but
when they left, never made it - about 16km up the road (before the
campground), they missed a turn and took a 48m plunge down a near vertical
cliff. Amazingly they all survived - one of them was able to climb up the
cliff to get help, one of them had a broken neck and is now a quad, and a
second had multiple internal injuries. The track was closed by the tow
truck, and held us up for a while, and it looked like a 60 series or early
80 series - had Toyota spelt across the grille - aside from that, the car
was flattened and how anyone survived is a miracle. The vehicle was
finally removed at 3pm.
Don't know if anyone has read any reports or can update how they are
Lastly, we had a Kluger with us - didn't make it in - some of those whoops are pretty sharp, and I guess he just didn't have the rampover to do it - we've had an XTrail in there before, but they are pretty good in that regard
Cheers,
Ivan