All I can say is - what a day. MacGyver organised a ripper of a trip up into the hills around Perth to find some mud. We didn't find too much of that despite a huge amount of rain the week before, but the hill climbs were a treat. Lots of challenges for everyone and some good recoveries - mostly of me. Twelve cars turned up on the day in total (eleven at the start and one joined after lunch) - quite a few visitors in there... We met at the top of Greenmount hill - the weather was fantastic even though it was a little chilly for those of us without a roof on the car. Once we had everyone, we headed off promptly at 9AM. Woohoo.

Our first challenge was a descent with a nice dip in the middle. Everyone got through this - Pommy Pete decided that going down wasn't challenging enough so went up and then down. I did a dumb thing and went (can you believe it) too slow and got hung up in the middle with two wheels in the air, requiring a little push from the observers. While I was there, I did a nice burnout on Skip's leather jacket...

Another short climb followed and then we had morning tea. It was a great little spot with a nice view. It was here we discovered that our visitor with the GQ patrol used a scuba diving tank to inflate his tyres rather than an air compressor. One tank held enough air for 28 (!) tyres and inflation happens really quickly. Wow.

Next, we headed back out of the picnic area and found another group of fellow travellers at the bottom of our next climb. They let us go first, thinking that given our obvious experience (yeah, right) that we'd show them the way. We did and everyone made it up the top with little or no fuss. Skip and I made it look a little difficult thanks to our limited wheel travel but no big problem overall...

The next hill has a chicken track (sorry - alternate route) up the left and some hard climbs up the right. Pretty much everyone at least tried the hard stuff and only three of us (Skip, myself and the as-yet-unnamed 80 series driver who lost his gas-tank bash guard) had to take the alternate route.

The coil-sprung cars did it the hill with relative ease, apart from the incident with the bash guard. The leaf sprung amongst us had more trouble, except for the Jeep due to a nice lift kit and some big tyres...

About halfway up was a nasty little bit where the ruts were deep, on opposing sides and there was a tree root sticking out. A little bit of momentum and ground clearance was required to get over this. I tried to do something a little different, and in my role as entertainment provider for the day, managed to put the 40 series onto two wheels on the same side of the car. It didn't feel that bad, but we needed three people to stand on the drivers side to bring it back down. Lucky there was a hill there to hold us up. I have the funny feeling that Antoinette will never get in my car again.

Next was a lunch stop, but we got a bit over-excited and a few decided to do another hill descent and climb before we ate. So, the rest of us stood around, took photos and generally chatted while Pete, Lyndon, Alan and the Disco had some fun. Everyone except Pete made it back up, and he only missed out by a whisker but had to be dragged up by Alan.

Lunch followed - Antionette and I had a gourmet feast while the rest looked on... :-)

Our final hill climb (up CV hill) for the day was (again) relatively easy for the coil-sprung, but had a nasty little hump halfway up. This required a fair amount of momentum - MacGyver had a few goes before finding the required amount of pressure with the right foot, as did I. I had a pretty hard time in low range before deciding that the old 2F motor had more than enough torque to go up the hill in high range which it did with ease. Note to self: Only use low range when absolutely necessary.

Some players had to make their way home at this stage, but the remainder headed up the Mundaring to York power-line track in search of some more fun. This was found in the form of a gravel play-ground and a little bit of mud on the side of the track.

Mounds of gravel were used to test suspension travel, and those with 33 inch tyres made easy work of the mud patch. For some (stupid) reason I decided to have a go at the ruts in the mud (even though I had absolutely no chance of making it through) and made it approximately zero of the way in. Someone with a winch decided that just had to use it to get me out and so they did. Thanks! :-)

The tree stump? Skip dared me, so I did...