Advertisement
Published: April 2nd 2013
Day 1603
It’s been a struggle this year with the blog, in our last entry we said that we had a lot to write about, but no motivation to write it and as much as we wanted to share it with the followers of Kangaroojack, we just struggled to put fingers on keys.
We have always believed that we have opened our souls and let you look inside, (pretty, I don’t think so) and we have always shared our secrets, our hopes and dreams with you all and now is not that time to stop.
I sit here, typing this on Easter Sunday 31March 2013, Caroline, Clem, Lesley, Scott and Marta have all gone off for a decent walk, and I have decided to stay back at camp and have a pottering sort of day, I am just sitting in front of our camp fire that has been burning continuously for about 48 hours as we moved into the pitch when the last campers had moved out.
The day is slightly overcast, it looks like rain, but I don’t think it will, as the sun is wrestling
Wombat Poo
We get so excited when we have visitorswith the clouds to make an appearance and I think the sun may win, I do hope so.
Of course I have my shorts on, my legs are warmed by the fire but my feet are cold, as I have my thongs on, the weather is a typical autumn day, usually hot days and cold mornings and evenings.
We left Canberra on Thursday 28 March and had a rendezvous with two other couples who were coming on this trip, our plan was to stay at Tom Groggin only 1 night then cross the Murray river into the Victorian High Country where we would head on to Wheelers Hut, which would be our final destination for this weekend.
Jeff and Sandra lambert were originally running this trip but unforeseen circumstances meant they had to bail out the day before, so we deputised Clem and Lesley Tozer to take up the mantle of trip leaders.
We all met at Williamsdale at 4.00pm on Thursday afternoon, and boy I was looking forward to spending some time with Caroline and tripping about in Gyspy, we were excited about the thought of going
Scott and Marta's Set up
This is what they call a tray on camper to Tom Groggin as we had heard a lot about it but had never been there.
With only three of us in our little convoy, we chose to sit at the back as we would probably be slightly slower than the others as we were towing, the trucks in front, (Clem and Leslie) and (Scott and Marta) both had tray on type campers, if you look at the attached pictures you will see what we are talking about.
Both of these couples are very seasoned travellers and have done plenty of big miles, on plenty of trips (big and small) and we were looking forwards to being away with them, this weekend was destined to be relaxing and fun, fun, fun.
We had a brief stop at Jindabyne for a coffee and a bite to eat, then we started to climb higher as we were in the ski region of Australia, which in the forthcoming months would be a haven for Skiers and Snow boarders from all over Australia.
We entered the boom gate at Kosciusko National park and pulled up at the little kiosk, we told the
"Lone Roo Scout"
This young Roo came up for a sticky beak and brought the mob with her lady that we were travelling through the park and on to Dogman’s Hut tonight, so effectively not stopping in Kosciusko NP and therefore not attracting a camping fee, (Truthfully that was the plan).
By the time we had descended the mountain road down in to Tom Groggin, it was nearly dark, we drove down to the Murray River to check the crossing, but the water was running fast, it wasn’t very clear and looked quite deep, everyone agreed that it may have been too dangerous to cross the Murray until we were confident on the conditions and the best way to check the conditions would be in the daylight. So we made the call and decided to stay this side of the river for our first night.
We all found a suitable camping spot, Tom Groggin is massive, so if you couldn’t find a decent camping spot here you have seriously got some issues, we found a suitable site without a problem and set up Gypsy for the night.
We all broke out the nibbles as none of us really wanted an evening meal as it was quite late by now.
The evening was really chilly, we sat around just talking, huddled in our warm clothing, with hats and scarfs and soon we decided that it was time for bed, probably as that would be the warmest place and we wanted to test drive our two new hot water bottles, (Hey we may be seasoned campers, but we are entitled to some creature comforts, honestly this is the first time in my life I have ever used a hot water bottle, I must be getting soft).
We woke to a damp start of the day, the sun had to climb high over the mountains before it brought its warmth with it, but when it did it was awesome.
We had camped just off the track and as we were all sitting looking at the morning come alive a lone roo hopped down the road and stopped directly in front of us and just looked, with their lovely soulful eyes, it’s as if she wanted to say “good morning”.
Within possibly two minutes we had about 30 Roo’s all sitting in the same position, just sitting there nice and quietly,
well that was until a couple of 4 wheel drives came along and spoilt the party.
We were surprised just how many Kangaroos were around in the morning sun, and every now and again, you would see one going at full pelt for a while to another grazing patch.
We all had breakfast and decided to drive down to the river to see how deep in was to cross, Caroline was anxious about the crossing, which she told me had worried her last night on the first appearance, but I reassured her that we would not take on more than we could handle and if it meant us backing out of a river crossing as we were not happy with it, then that is what we would do.
Down at the crossing there were a couple of vehicles waiting to cross, we parked the cruiser and went and said good morning to these guys, the second vehicle was a weeny Suzuki and the chap said the water would be just be half way up his door so it wouldn’t be a problem.
Caroline and myself watched these two
vehicle enter the river and make their way across and they soon came out of the other side, though neither of them stopped to drain the water out and as they drove up the other side and dumped a large amount of water on the track just making it slippier for the next vehicle who climbed the slope and so on.
By the time we were to cross the climb out would be like a skating rink, it’s amazing just how far a little bit of thought goes.
We got back to Gypsy and hooked her up checked the camp site for anything we had left behind then drove back down to the river crossing.
As Caroline had seen other vehicles cross already, she was now quite confident that we could easily do it, even though we were towing Gypsy who weighs 1100 Kg.
Just before entering the water I selected 4 wheel drive, low ratio 2
nd gear and also engaged the front and rear diff lockers, this would give us maximum traction and would stop the wheels from spinning if the bed of the river was loose,
River Crossing
Caroline following a vehicle down to the Murrey River crossing this would also assist us when we were on the greasy climb out of the river.
The climb out was not too bad and soon we were idling on the other side of the river, it was Scott and Marta’s turn next and Marta had chosen to drive this section and had a bit of a wheel spinning thing going on at the top of the slope as their cruiser even though they (thought) was in 4 wheel drive, they don’t have diff lockers, it turned out that she or Scotty had forgot to lock their front hubs in, (effectively not allowing them to engage four wheel drive at all).
Let me quickly explain what diff lockers are (even though, I am not very mechanical).
With a normal (Limited Slip Differential) this allows you to go around a bend and the outside wheel has further to travel than the inside wheel, now in our world off four wheel drives, If you have a wheel in the air which we do frequently, the diff sends power to the wheel with least resistance, (which is the wheel in the air) which is absolutely
no use as you need quite the opposite, as you want all the power diverted to the wheel that is in contact with the ground, which is the wheel that will drive you out of a sticky situation.
Now “Diff Lockers” are devices that lock the diffs together, so if you have a wheel in the air and your lockers are engaged then the power is shared making the driving out wheel as powerful as the useless heel that is in the air, the only other little trick you can have is lockers for the front axle and the rear axle, some people may choose a front locker and some people may choose a rear locker and some have both
I hope that all made sense.
Anyway we all eventually crossed the river safely and got the other side, Marta was a bit red faced from her hub locking experience or not as the case may be, but no ribbing took place as they had done really well and lets face it, we all have our issues from time to time.
The next big obstacle we came across
Clem and Leslie
Just about to cross was this very deep hole that we had to navigate around, which we managed to do, we were ahead of Scott and Marta and waited for 5 minutes which was long enough so I walked back to see where I thought their truck was and found they were just heading down, they had to winch themselves out of the deep hole.
Our goal today was getting over mount Pinnibar, the terrain was really tough going and we had only managed to cover 22 kilometres in 4 hours.
Clem and Leslie had done a big climb and came over the radio that it was really slippy and to stick to the left hand side of the track if possible, I looked at Caroline and she said put it in to four wheel drive low engage the lockers and just give it enough power.
We were ¾ of the way up and we had lost all traction in the mud, the weight of Gypsy was pulling us down and we slid a little way down, I said to Caroline “we need to take stock of this, let the tyres down some more and
Climbing out
Scott and Marta climbing out the other side give it another go”.
We managed to park the truck, so it would not slide any further and I let the pressure of the tyres down to 22 PSI.
A message came over the radio from Clem telling us that the terrain above where we were heading was looser and steeper and he wondered if we would make it, so we thought a while and decided the safest option was to not to attempt it, but our biggest problem now was where the hell were we were going to turn the rig around and face the truck in the opposite direction when we were just about perched on the side of mount Pinnibar.
Clem and Leslie had walked down from the top and Scott and Marta had walked up from where they were at the bottom and we all looked at what options we had, (there weren’t many), but we were all in agreement that the only option was to go back the way we had just come. There was also no saying if Marta could have made it either without diff lockers, but then Marta had weight with the tray
on camper on the back and thus had the traction that we didn’t.
Our biggest concerns was the truck sliding backwards, jack knifing, then destroying Gyspy then wrecking the Landcruiser, (not much really) and of course getting injured in the process.
Caroline is absolutely fantastic in a crisis and this was one of those times when we had to think logically.
The plan was to reverse the truck and trailer backwards, until we can move into a slight slip way, that had been cut by a grader or a bulldozer, but it was quite overgrown, so everyone cleared out as much vegetation as we could to make the placing of gypsy as easy as possible.
Now our four wheel driver training tells us that you need to move under power and not let the wheels slide, if you sliding you are out of control.
We needed to reverse back about 150 mtrs and doing it in reverse, whilst towing was something I was not looking forward to, but this was the only option we had open to us.
Technically you should be
able to descend in reverse without even having to apply the brakes in low range four wheel drive, but the decent was a bit too rapid for me, whilst trying to reverse with the trailer on, and I was mindful of being too hard of the brake as if I broke the traction of the tyres, we would slide, god knows where.
Caroline asked me if I wanted her in the truck, I should have said no, but wanted her calmness to wash over me, as I was so nervous.
We started our decent, and there were a few moments when she slipped but soon we had tucked the trailer exactly where we had wanted to, which we were pleased with, and I was just in the process of getting our hearts out of our mouths.
We were still pointing upwards and decided we were in possibly a worse predicament than before as the need to turn left and it was such a high drop off we may roll the truck.
Clem, Scotty and myself walked even further down the slope until we found another slip way where
we could get the trailer even further back than before and which would allow us to get a good right hand lock, the only thing was we had to reverse another 300mtrs down the side of a slippery mountain.
The girls all asked what the plan was and we discussed it as a group, I asked everyone to get in front of our truck as the only way we were going was backwards, and we asked for a spotter to stand where the truck was hopefully going to end up, if we made it.
Caroline again jumped in the cab with me and said, “You can do this” so we pulled forwards out of the siding we were in and straightened up we were now pointing straight up mount Pinnibar, endeavouring to reverse down a slippy mountain track 350 mtrs backwards.
A couple of times we had to stop and get someone to tell us which way the track went as it was so narrow the vegetation marred our vision.
Finally we were on a flat section and we reversed the trailer and truck in to this very
deep siding and I got it all the way back as far as we could, though we did have to move a huge log that took six of us to roll out the way, and even though we only managed to move it about 500mm it gave us enough of a swing out.
Soon we were pointing in the opposite direction, the turning round of the truck had taken over two hours, and it was very stressful and Caroline had calmed my frazzled nerves, what a girl she is.
The endeavour to get to Wheelers Hut had failed, still we were pragmatic about it, nobody got hurt, nothing was damaged, though we did nearly did have heart failure a couple of times.
It was a careful journey back and we were crossing back over the Murray River about 5.30, and we had earned a beer.
We got back to camp and found somewhere to set up again, this time we wanted to make sure we had some morning sun to charge our batteries and to keep us warm.
A small fire pit was dug and
The turn around point
With the aid of everyone else we managed to turn around we sat around in the darkness talking about what an adventure we had, had that day, and all settled in doing our evening meal.
I was in bed for about 8.50pm physically and mentally exhausted and just needing my bed, what a day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.633s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 25; qc: 203; dbt: 0.4041s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.8mb
Chris Collins
non-member comment
Convoy
Hi Andy, Mistake! Your comment "....With only three of us in our little convoy, we chose to sit at the back as we would probably be slightly slower than the others as we were towing...." I thought the whole principle of convoys was, the slowest/most vulnerable up front? Just being picky guys. Great Blog! I usually get them read to me by Willy, but this time I got here first. What you guys are doing is what most of us would like to do, so keep on doing it! I was thinking of starting my own Blog, as we had such an exciting Flat White on Sunday and looking forward to another today, although we will make it a bit more exciting by changing the venue, Wow! Anyway, apart from your tidying up your Convoy procedures, it seems like you are doing just great, and we wish you all the best! Love from Willy & Chris from the New Forest