Convoy,

 

Tony - Holden Rodeo

Josh - 4Runner

Col  - Baby Troupe

 

Trip

For me the day started quite early, being on the road at 5am so I could fuel up at Muswellbrook & meet the other guys at a little place called Aberdeen for 08:00.
The drive was a good one, even though I couldn't believe I was even awake at that time of the morning, let alone heading out on a trip.

The blacktop section for the two and a half hours up to Aberdeen was pretty much uneventful, with a fair amount covered in the dark with all lights ablaze & watched a glorious sunrise as I was coming towards Singleton. My first stop was Muswellbrook, where I fuelled up & bought a cup of tea, to help keep me on my toes, knowing I was going to be meeting the guys in about 15 minutes & have a big day of wheeling ahead.

At Aberdeen, Tony was already there, so we said g'day & waited for Josh to arrive a few minutes later before heading off. The track we took, I don't know the name of, but I will call it the gate track, as I reckon it would have had about 50 gates on it, all which had to opened for us to get through & closed after us.

We finally reached out first track for the day, Stoney Ridge, which due to the recent weather, looked a little dicey.

We decided to walk the track first to ensure that all would be OK & after getting about 1/2 way, it was decided that Tony would go first in the Deo.

He made up the first section OK & was looking pretty good to finish the track, but towards the end (where we had not walked to) was a little slipper bit of clay, which was also quite steep & with each attempt, he was getting closer to the edge of the track & a potential 20 drop.

He called us up on the radio & we eventually made it up the hill & by the time we arrived, we were pretty short on breath. It seems that our fitness had long passed us by & we were starting to show signs of too much of a good thing.

After catching our breath, we decided the best thing to do would be to guide Tony down slowly in reverse, all the way back to the bottom, which was only about 400m. This started out a little on the trick side, as even going backwards meant slipping towards the edge & at one point I contemplated strapping his vehicle to a tree on the high side of the track to attempt to slide it the other way.

Once he was recovered from that, we all clambered back to our vehicles & headed off for a bit to a nicely cleared area, where we stopped for morning tea.

This is where we also decided to air down before completing any more trails.

From this stop, we continued up this trail to the top of the hill, where stoney ridge trail joined up & then continued along the top of the mountains.

These trails were extremely slippery on the descent, & I know I had the vehicle crossed up a couple of times with the rear wanting to overtake the front, but had to catch it with a little pressure on the accelerator.

It was all worth it though, as the views were fantastic, as well as quite friendly livestock along the route.

It wasn't long before we had finally closed the last gate & we were heading along to Moonan Flat, where we then headed up to Pole Blue Camp grounds.

At Pole Blue, we stopped & had lunch, while also taking a look around to ensure that there would be sufficient room for 30 odd cars to come up & set up camp when we do the trip in April. After that, I took over leading of the group to take them to the rock & then onto Water Gauge Camping area.

The track down to the waterguage looks harder than it is, but I reckon if there was a little rain, it would be very slippery, as most of it looks like clay.

From there, we headed back along Gummi Rd, where I hit what I thought was a stick on the road, but it turned out to be a tiger snake. A few years ago, I would have been happy to have killed it, but nowadays with an understanding of what these animals do to help control the number of introduced species in this country, I actually felt bad about it.

Just around the corner from this, we stopped at the Manning river for a number of photos before heading back via a quarry, where we stopped for a little play.

This quarry should keep the boredom at bay for some of the guys when we do the trip a little later, we agreed. After this, we started to head back to the main rd, when the clouds rolled in, which in normal circumstances would be fine, but at high altitude, meant that visibility was about 3 feet in front of the bullbar. With this, we still had a river crossing to contend with & then an open road, which I was concerned that some lunatic might be coming the other way & not be able to see us.

I still had the lead, so basically turned all lights on, in an effort to alert anyone on the tracks that there was something there. Luckily for us, we did not have any problems & the cloud cleared in time for us to get to the dingo gate, where we again had a little play before airing up, saying out goodbyes & heading back.

I finally arrived home at about 9pm that night, on what has been my longest day trip (in hours) ever. I was most surprised that I was not more tired than I was, especially considering the storms I drove trough on my return.

It was good to catch up with these guys & I look forward to the trip proper in April, where we will catch up with many more of the guys from the forum.