Had some
young friends of friends type campers up at our bush property for the long
melbourne cup weekend.
They were going to be there before dark to set up but arrived at midnight and not being
well prepared camped on a slope about 20 meters from the flat
camp area which they didn't see despite having to drive the groups 3 vehicles virtually over the fireplace to get to the final unsuitable spot.
Next day they were out 4wding in there little go-anywhere "cause its so light" Suzuki, and just as we were about to head down to the local
Yarck pub for dinner they arrive at the front door on dusk, "Went down this big
hill and it got steeper
and steeper and we got stuck, had to walk all the way back - can you pull us out ?".
It was a wet steep rocky track they were on, but worse they had attempted to get out and every attempt and put them further off the track until they were on quite a bad angle with the driver doors right up against a large fallen tree such that they could only get out of the car via the window.
Their AT tyres pressures were of course at full road pressures.
With good muddies, chains, difflocks and low pressures it challenged our Patrol to turn around and position itself to snatch them up
hill such that we didn't make the situation worse.
Short pull and they were back on the track and we spent nearly 10 minutes lowering there tyre pressures because the valves seemed to flow little air.
With 8psi in the tyres the vehicle drove itself out the rest of the way which was just as steep as the "stuck point".
We were late for dinner, but on the way home decided to do some night 4wding and were 1/2 way up a track when the big saturday night storm hit and we had quite an interesting drive in the sheet rain illuminated by heavy lighting.
But it was nothing to the condition of the campers little dome tents when we got back home.
They had neglected to re-position and strengthen their tents during the day and huddled up all night in one of them trying to keep less wet.
Despite being pre-warned of rain they had no tarps or anything but a couple of suburban tyre umbrella's and looked a little dejected trying to get warm by a soggy smoky fire. I took them up a load of nice cut/dry firewood next morning but two days of a planned four day trip was enough and they went home early
a bit beaten up by the whole experience.
I was wondering if I was ever so ill prepared and I'd have to admit that when trying to put myself thru Uni by trapping and selling rabbits that money was short and I did no better.
Robin Miller