Recent Trips

The Springs – April 2 – 3 2011

BEER OCLOCK HILL SUCOMES TO MAN AND BEAST IN A TRIPLE TRIUMPH.

ANDREW LINDSEY CONQUERS THE FAMOUS BEER OCLOCK HILL NOT ONCE, NOT TWICE BUT THREE TIMES – WHAT A LEGEND!!!!

The fresh Warrick morning air provided a morning wake up call for those who were still half asleep and coffee was just around the corner at Macca’s.

What a beautiful start to what was defiantly going to be a great weekend of having plenty of fun.

Read more: The Springs April 2011

 Levuka Trip 7^th & 8^th August 2010

Saturday morning we all met at HJ’s at Beaudesert for breakfast at 7:30am… oops, well most of us did except for the trip leader who had a lost-keys-drama before leaving home thanks to Leonie. Weekend off to a good start!

After setting up camp at Levuka we set off down through the rain forest and up the hill. It didn’t take long for someone to get stuck and so the weekend training started with snatch recoveries all round. On to some hills for some stall-start training and it wasn’t long before Sue, Mark & Daryl were mostly done with all their required training. On to the playground for some deceptively slippery hillclimbs and then back to the camp for lunch.

Read more: LEVUKA August 2010

Well we all arrived at Gladfield meeting point on Saturday morning in the pouring rain and looked at each other and said "What the hell are we all doing here in this weather". Someone reckoned the rain was due to clear by lunchtime so we all proceeded to Janowen to set up camp.

It didn't stop raining! It rained all day saturday and all night. Andrew and I at least stayed dry by setting up camp inside the kitchen shed for the night. Everyone else battled the rain and mud to set up tents and caravans. Wayne did the most four wheel driving for the whole weekend by nearly getting stuck in the carpark trying to park the caravan.

After setting up camp and several hot coffees later we resigned to the weather and setup in the shed for some training and discussion on tyre plugging and general tyre changing and repairs. A small break in the weather allowed us to go out onto a patch of grass and learn about using a turfer which Wayne had packed in the back of his car for the last 7 years and still didn't know how to use.

The next morning saw a break in the weather but the park was too wet to drive on so we found a bit of flat grass again and ran everyone's winch cables out and rewound them and discussed winching in general.

Summing up it was a cold, wet, miserable weekend of camping with no fun driving in the mud, but we had plenty of informative discussions covering all subjects in the training and I'm sure everyone learnt something from it all. Thanks to Peter for arranging the weekend.

Mark

Wayne started off by saying that he didn’t know if we would find much mud. Well, we didn’t have to wait too long before we found some. The larger mud puddles looked like they could swallow up a road-train, but even though we skirted around these, we still found plenty of muddy tracks to test everyone on the trip. Eleven vehicles started the trip (after Dawn’s Pajero failing to re-start at the meeting point) and everyone had to be recovered at some time during the day except Ash & Nic in their Triton. They did however spend some time off the road with the help of Bush-Mechanics Bruce & Dennis to track down a suddenly worrying grating noise coming from under the Triton. Turned out to be a loose circlip and transfer case cover and they soon caught up with the rest of us. Neil managed to pop a tyre of the rim and after several attempts to jack up the car safely and securely on the muddy track we managed to get it back on and re-inflated. Some of us got through on chunky tyres and lockers and some of us got through on shear heavy right-footwork. All in all, everyone had a great day and nobody went home without plenty of Beerburrum mud to be cleaned off their car.

General consensus – Let’s do it again soon!

Mark