Page 20 - TLCCV-Overland-Cruisering

Next we headed off north along Reilly’s Road, turned into the air. After John’s heart stopped racing, out
onto Ridge Road then Boyles Road, which ended in came the winch. John was successfully winched
a dead end, so after some backtracking we contin- through the worst of the bottom section of the track,
ued along Ridge Road and turned down Natives and then he drove the rest of the climb. But by far,
Track. the drive of the day was Darren’s wife, Rachel, in
Many of the tracks we traversed today were very the mighty black Prado. With dust flying and rocks
slow going due to the amount of downed timber, spitting she drove all the way to the top with only a
forcing us to follow minor tracks around the obsta- little direction from Darren on the hand held radio.
cles. It was an excellent exercise in wheel place- Following the excitement of the last track and as
ment and vehicle positioning to negotiate the tight the time was getting on, Simon made the wise de-
twisty tracks through the trees and in some places cision not to attempt a 4 o’clock track. We left the
over the boulders. forest, via Croziers Rd, with the hope of returning to
After Natives Track we found our way onto Googies give Alcorns Track a go next time.
Fireline and proceeded to wind our way up and Thanks, Simon for a very enjoyable day. Hopefully
down until we came to a rather sharp drop off that the Grand Final parade becomes a regular on the
required some road building to fill a large hole. 4WD calendar.
Simon successfully negotiated the drop off with a Brad Riddington (2694)
little guidance from Rob. After all that physical work
by some of the crew, it was time for a break and
lunch was taken along the track.
After lunch everyone was safely guided down the
drop off by Simon and we continued along Googies
Fireline. We turned onto Christies Track and with
some careful wheel placement negotiated some
large rocks at the bottom of the climb to Link Track.
After retracing our steps along Natives Track we
continued along Ridge Track and took an unnamed
track back down to Link Track. We followed Link
Track until we came to an interesting looking climb.
To the left was fairly rocky and rutted and to the
right an easier way to the top. by John C. in his well set up 79 series.
Everyone must have been feeling a bit adventurous The rear leaf springs got hung up on one of the
as we all took the left track with varying degrees of rocks and stopped his forward progress. After
success. Dave in the Prado got a bit crossed up at some direction from Simon trying to get off and
the bottom and took a couple of goes to get through around the rock, John reversed a little too far. The
the tricky, rocky section without leaving any bits of passenger side rear wheel dropped into a large hole
metal on the track. The most spectacular drive was resulting in the front driver side wheel lifting high

[ CLASSIC TRIPS ]

GRAMPIANS MVOs

December, 2014

Trip Leaders:
Laurie & Heidi Miles Zebra 80 Series TD
Convoy:
Michael & Megan Bourke Eagle 1 150 Series Prado TD
Ryan Davies Rhino FJ Cruiser Petrol
Andreas & Tristan (8) Faulwetter Chintags 100 Series Petrol
John Poelwyk & Julie Ross Big John Troopy TD
Phil & Marleen Susman Noddy 200 Series TD
Chris Smith Chris 100 Series TD

Heading along Victoria Range: Our bush camp for this great weekend trip was within
2 kilometres of Halls Gap. Our convoy of 7 vehicles assembled to be briefed
about the day’s adventures.
Chris Smith had just returned from his 4 month outback trip, so it was great
catching up with him and hearing about his recent travels.
We followed directions from our convoy leaders Laurie and Heidi, and after 15
minutes on the bitumen found ourselves at Reid’s Lookout (the lookout you
have when you are not having an out-look!) Unfortunately the view of the valley
floor was completely under cloud.

As we were to find out across the weekend, this part of Victoria provides 4WD

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