Convoy,

Col, Rhonda, Angela and Alex - Baby Troupe

 

 

 

Trip

Well what an interesting trip. It was to be the first trip with Rhonda and the kids on a set of tracks I knew well. Maybe a little too well, as you will see a little later.

The trip started out with the usual meet up at the Hawkesbury river & with only one extra vehicle, I knew we could cover the tracks with time to burn, so was looking to be a pretty relaxing weekend, which would be an ideal introduction to wheeling and camping with my new family.

We went to our usual breakfast stop out Richmond way at Maccas, fuelled up & picked up the keys to the Spanish Steps track. From there we went around to Lithgow, where I made my first mistake of the trip. It seems that they have finished the bypass road & due to that I missed the turn off to Newnes. Luckily I saw some familiar mountains & they looked to be on the wrong side of the road, so I referred to the sat nav & sure enough I was on the wrong road. A bit of navigating later & we were back to where we should have been & set up camp for the weekend.

Setting up camp was a fun little exercise, with having to set up extra tents for the kids, but we worked through it. We will get a routine happening & make it more efficient in time I am sure.

I had decided earlier that this weekend would also be an opportunity to give Rhonda a drive of the Lil’ troopy on a few tracks, so after setting up camp I gave a demonstration of what she could do with a quick run up to the Aboriginal carvings at the top of the hill & came back down again. Troy also decided to have a play & get a look at what his 80 series could do & when to use the lockers, with me as a spotter.

We managed to get through that easy enough & headed from there to the Gardens of Stone track, where I handed the wheel over to Rhonda & she had a little play going up there. All went pretty well & I look forward to giving her more opportunities to take the wheel on more trips, as both her & the lil’ troopy worked well together.

That track being conquered, we stopped for lunch at the top & took a few pics of the amazing scenery before moving off to the Lost City, where again we took a few pics & had a little walk around.

After that, we headed to the first hard track for the day, being Son of Bobs. I walked it first & chose my line before having a go at it. I had Rhonda & Angela on board, so knew that taking too many risks wasn’t really an option, so climbed up the hard part, lifting a wheel here & there before the hard right near the top & over the last rock. Well that was where it all went pear shaped, I put the wheels onto the road building I had done & the front wheels went up onto the rock. As I was going pretty easy, the vehicle did it usual stop, so I gave it a little right pedal, the turbo spooled up & we started to climb, then as the power came on, the road building was spat out from my rear wheels, the vehicle slipped sideways & dropped hard onto the rock. I heard a very loud bang & all I could think was that the transfer case had just been smashed to bits. I climbed out to find that it had missed the transfer case, but not the tail shaft, with it getting a 90-degree bend in it & had twisted pretty badly before breaking. All I could think then was that the weekend was over & we were about 300km from home.

That was when I decided to stop & think clearly & as I was doing that, the guy from Misty Mountains tours starts coming down the track. I signalled that I was in trouble & he offered his assistance.

We hooked the vehicle up to his with a snatch strap before I could climb under & assess the damage properly, and all it was was a busted shaft, so I removed that, was pulled out & then I was able to remove the front half of the shaft.

After that Troy decided that the chicken track was the better option & we then made the decision to head from there back to camp, as we had lost heaps of time in repairs. I was able to drive on the front dif only, so I sent Troy to Lithgow to get some water for showers that night, as I knew we couldn’t take the risk of driving down to the creek, as there was no way that the now front wheel drive cruiser was going to climb anything loose & steep.

I found a nice log & dragged it back to camp for firewood & that night we enjoyed some great food and a few yarns around the fire. The kids had a great time with games & sparklers, and seemed to sleep well that night.

Next morning, I had a good think about what we could do & decided that some sight seeing will be a good option, so drove around to the Newnes lookout where we took some top scenery shots & then headed to the glow worm tunnels. This was a first for all the others, so I enjoyed showing them some of the beauty of the area, which is one of the main reasons I keep coming back to this part of the world.

From there, we came back via Wiseman’s ferry, as the kids had never been a vehicle ferry before & the run was pretty good, considering we sere still on the front dif & after that we went home.

All had a great trip & I thank Toy, his kids & Rhonda & her kids for a great weekend.

The tailshaft was eventually fixed by Gibson’s Driveshafts of Edgeworth & it is now as good as a new one. I was pretty impressed with their professional service & that they could do exactly what I wanted done, with new unis at both ends & a great price.

I also must thank Misty Mountains Tours for their assistance in recovering the lil' troopy. Without their help the vehicle would not have been recovered as easily. Well done guys.