Reminder: You can find the complete collection of photos here.
It start pretty simply - I wanted to go out and see the last remnants of the winter mud. As it turned out, after I scheduled the trip we had a lot of rain - pretty much right up to the day itself.And for some odd reason, many people decided that this would be a good trip to come along. Registered on the WC4x4 website we had nine members and twelve visitors. There were a couple of no-shows and a few extras. Froggy also showed up at the swamp with his training customers for a bit giving us a grand total of close to 25 vehicles at one stage.
I think the attendance list looked like this
Now, I'm not sure if I've got the vehicles all correct (some I don't remember at all - sorry) - email me with any changes... My sincere apologies if I've missed anyone... It was kind of chaotic out there.
Anyway, we started at the bottom of Greenmount Hill, picked up Iceman in Sawyers Valley and collected Bunj and Neshka at The Lakes.
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From there it was a pretty short hop out along West Talbot Rd to the swamp. Note that our usual play area along West Talbot Rd has been closed because it is a water catchment area. That was a bit disappointing because I had planned on going there but you get that.
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Most got around the swamp with little or no difficulty - although there was lots of water and it was very slippery in places the underlying track was very firm and as long as you had clearance it was ok.
A few people needed recovering and Sparky had a nasty run-in with a tree that just came out of nowhere... No serious damage, though.
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Next, we headed back towards the powerline track via a few small and not very challenging gullies...
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Our next stop was the swampy area near the end of the of the powerline track. We had lunch here and had a bit of a play.
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Iceman had fun before lunch but most of us waited until after...
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While the Jeep played around near the entrance, I went off and found some other mud. Somehow, I convinced Justin to drive into it...
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Even after two goes and two recoveries it wasn't looking good...
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KC arrived at this point and had a go. He didn't get much further. Declining to be snatched out backwards (oh the shame!) KC winched himself further into the mud. This worked up until he tried to turn around to come back out - more on that in a moment. Maverick dived in to help KC out but also ended up stuck...
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Things were looking pretty good for KC.
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And then they weren't. Note the wave of mud - that was created by trying drag the nose of his car around so we could winch him out. Anyway - with the combination of his winch, Maverick's winch and Ugboot's winch both cars were eventually recovered.
So, we headed off down the power line track.
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This was quite a gnarly hill. Not everyone attempted it and it required good wheel placement or lockers or both...
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The next hill was also quite rocky. The Surf bounced up (really!) and Maverick made it look easy...
After this it was time to head home for some people. I joined Dave, Davo and Sparky to do a bit more of the power line track.
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Davo went into this one a bit quick and stalled his engine after it drank some water. But it started once we dragged him out, blew some white smoke, threw heaps of water out the exhaust pipe and ran a bit rough at idle. Lucky... Update: As it happens, Davo wasn't so lucky. The engine ran fine but it was still rough a few days later. So, he took it to the shop. Bent conrods. $3000 damage. Ouch.
Overall, I had a bunch of fun today. It was a bit disappointing to find the swamp with such easy tracks and doubly disappointing to see the Talbot Rd area closed but them's the rules.
Thanks muchly to everyone for coming along and putting up with the chaos that comes with such a large crowd...
