Big Pete laid on this trip and he promised mud. This was a promise that didn't take long to come true. Much mud and accompanying fun was had. Many vehicles were stuck in varying positions and many recoveries were performed. All up - a top boys day out.

Quite a few takers on the day but only three from West Coast 4x4 - everyone else was away on various other trips. We met at the top of Greenmount hill - it was still drizzling and the hill was in a cloud despite the forecast being for clearing rain. All good signs for mud... Departing relatively promptly we headed towards York and Talbot Rd. Stopping to lock our hubs, we headed off into the bush.

About five metres off the road was a nice, deep water hole. Pretty firm underneath to start with but pretty sloppy once I got through as tail end. No-one got stuck here but it wasn't long before the fun started...

Just a little further in from this was a nice deep hole. Big Pete was in the lead and drove straight in but not straight back out again. A recovery (naturally) followed. Pete couldn't get out and help because he couldn't get his door open.

I studiously avoided that hole but found another slippery bit about 50 metres further on to get stuck in. The second of many more recoveries to come...

Next was a nice little run which was deceptively slippery. Again, being tail end I got the worst and (predictably) got stuck. But, I wasn't the only one. One of the Hiluxen followed Big Pete through a very deep water hole and drowned his engine. After an hour or so of fiddling with it (and some lunch consumed by everyone) it eventually started but only by the old pull-start method. Took a while before it ran well...

After lunch we spent much time in the PlayPen. While we were there some people from the Rockingham 4WD Club joined us in the mud. A Holden Ute with FJ60 running gear did very well as did a fairly old Landrover. The ruts were all slippery, deep and wet. Big Pete stole most of the show but Pommy Pete had some fun too with the rest of us looking on and then following the trailblazers...

After that we headed to the other side of Talbot Rd to another mud patch. We had stopped for afternoon tea but everyone decided it was time for a play. I was having small troubles with water but nothing too serious. I did get stuck in a slippery spot and just after I got recovered we had four cars simultaneously stuck. Big Pete was stuck on flat ground with absolutely no traction, the SWB Patrol was stuck in the same spot I was previously, the GU Patrol was bogged to the axles and the 100 series I'll leave for a moment...

So, to the 100 series. While other were recovering the stuck vehicles I had a go at pulling the 100 series out. Going forward with a snatch strap resulted in absolutely no movement from the 100 series at all - just me doing a Jurasic Park trick of sliding around. Going backwards got us no further. Big Pete had a go, figuring that a heavier car would make all the difference. It did (although not quite in the way we had intended) and the snatch strap gave way, denting in the back door of the 100 series. Ouch! Winching was the next bet.

While the winching was set up, Pommy Pete recovered the two Patrols, but only with some difficulty as he was having trouble building up enough speed in the slippery stuff to make the snatch strap do the work. But, eventually they were out. Para: Meanwhile, winching the 100 series out forward didn't work at all, so one of the Hiluxen was put into a position to winch it out backwards. It was anchored to a very large dead tree but we ended up dragging both the tree and the vehicle down the hill towards the Landcruiser. So, a larger (live) tree was used instead. This didn't work either until we used a snatch block with the winch. Finally, one and a half hours later the 100 series came out. The final photo shows where the car was - basically it had bellied out going forwards and had buried the tail in the mud as well. Not a great place to be if you were on your own.

At this point we headed towards home. We did get a call from someone in trouble but finding them was difficult and by the time Big Pete got there they had gotten out by themselves. So, we all headed home.