Thought we would explore some out of the way countryside around Marysville over
easter.
The 4wding part of the trip started with a
Buxton Burger (
well vegie burger for me) and as we sat around the Igloo roadhouse we noticed new 78 series 4500 V8 work utes pulling in
and fuelling up, one even had an armed
police officer as passenger.
Went into bush at "Gypsey lane" and took the harder outside track round to Marysville.
Got into the steep part when we heard an explosion from the chev V8 60 series accompanying us. Seems the driver had been running it on gas in lean mode and they don't like being switched to petrol under load.
The bang blew the airbox apart (5 main pieces ) and even lifted the bonnet
a little.
After some investigation I grabbed my soldering iron and over the next 1/2 hour we re-melted the plastic parts together and re-contructed the box.
A roll of duct tape finished the job and off we went, with me noting that the soldering iron had lately become a more used rescue tool than my winch.
Then had another example of local knowledge usefulness.
I had suspicions that there would be a back way into Marysville via the bush despite the most accurate map of the area showing none.
Sure enough we found it saving several km of backtracking.
We then visited the nearby Mt
Gordon area and Woods
lookout. The tracks past here used to be good but are now blocked off although there are plenty of trail bike tracks bypassing the gates.
From Woods
lookout there is a hard
rock ledge climb that rallies used to use and we noted it was probably still driveable with dual lockers.
We however had another mission and that was to find a way through to the
Acheron way
via the once famous Strickland spur path.
We followed the map again towards Strickland spur link track but the area had changed a lot with logging and we found a main road where none should be.
A long came another DSE 4500 V8 work ute, this one from Marysville and we stopped him and asked and he pointed out a little unsignposted part overgrown link track which we took, and said that the path was difficult but that tracks were still there.
Soon we were into fun country as we wound our way up through medium level tracks and some rocky ledges to Mt Strickland area.
Here we came across another of those interesting situations which required one to make a proceed or not descision.
We had found the hard track we were looking for but its entrance had large trees on either side. Around each tree was some yellow tape I had not seen before
with the words "Fire Investigation area Keep out".
As track was not signed we cross referenced its co-ordinates to verify as it was 5 o'clock by now and the girls where getting anxious, however I didn't
let that influence us to back out and tried to make an honest decision as to wether the stiuation was real on just some uncollected track markings.
I was aware that there had been fire here a year ago and the tape looked old so we decided to push on for a bit, as the officer we stopped earlier hadn't
noted any issues when I had asked him about the track by name.
Just a hundred meters into the track and we saw edvidence of a lot of bulldozer work and dozens of "pushed aside" trees.
Then chained sawed tree ends had been cut some time ago and this reinforced my assement
that the track markings were simple uncollected relics.
Not long after we began to find out why this track had its reputation as the rocky downhill ledges got worst.
We rounded one corner and saw 2 exhausted trail bike riders just below a real bad spot.
One had the same type DRZ400e that I had just purchased last week and we stopped for a while an helped out and eventually the bikes were pushed up the ledges.
They were not sure where they were and after a chat and some drinks we left them to attempt the downhill track section ahead. About this time I was really hoping I had made the right decision as we inched over a vertical 1 meter drop with odd wheels hanging in the air.
If we went back it would difficult to even winch out and dusk was approaching, however the bike riders had got up so we new the track must have been open below.
Two or three km's later after a delightful drive/fall thru magnificent tall timber and lush ferny areas complete with lyrebirds we came across a small logged area.
It was now very obvious that the area was logged as a result of being burnt out some time ago and that there was even healthy re-growth on some trees.
No signs or gates etc existed out to the
Acheron way main road and so we felt we had made the right decision, but the track was hardly used and in poor shape and
I wonder how many others had been put off by the failure of officals to collect old signs and track information.