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Newnes – 3^rd & 4^th April 2004

Who attended

Col & Stella                                         Baby Troupe

Paul (Humpy)                                       Sierra

Ron, Daisha, Steve & Aron                  90 Series Prado

Sunny, Kevin & Ann                             4 runner

Jim & Darryl                                         Pajero

Robert (Statue), Alona & Eliza              XJ Cherokee

Neil & Fiona                                        Hilux

Ulrich & Sheree                                    100 Series Landcruiser

Gary & Kelly                                        Hilux

Julie                                                      80 Series Landcruiser

Darryl                                                   Defender 110

Intro

This Newnes trip is one of the more popular trips in the Central Coast 4WD Club calendar. This is my 5th time I have done this trip, this being my first as a trip leader.

Areas covered in this trip include the Lost City, Sunnyside Lookout, The Glow Worm Tunnels, Newnes Camping area and the famous Spanish Steps track, which unfortunately is about to be closed to all except State Forests and Four Wheel Drive Clubs.

All of this is starts around 30km from Lithgow at the Zig Zag Railway and takes in some of the spectacular sights often seen in the Blue Mountains area. The trip itself would be graded as a medium grade track, where a small amount of suspension lift is beneficial to help prevent under body damage.

Trip

Yet again it was an early rise with meeting everyone at the Hawkesbury River at 06:30 for the start of the trip.

Before hand, we made arrangements to meet Robert & Alona at the Berowra on ramp & Paul at Pennant Hills.

Well, most of us arrived on time & during intros etc it was decided that the last 2 vehicle to get there, as they are late will get the honour of doing the club trip reports, with a flip of the coin deciding who gets what. Jim & Darryl scored the verbal report, while Ulrich scored the written report.

Well, once everyone arrived, we departed around 10 minutes late for Windsor McDonalds. Along the way, we picked up Robert, Alona & Eliza in their Jeep & Paul in his Suzuki.

While at McDonalds, we had a brief chat about where we were going, what we were going to be doing etc. After that I topped up my fuel & we were then under way towards the Zig Zag railway, where we turned off.

Unfortunately, there were a few newbies in this convoy & did not understand a few of the basics of being on a trip. These being convoy procedures & the importance of trying to keep up. We lost a few at the zig zag turn off, but we managed to call them up on the UHF radios & after a few minutes, they managed to turn around & catch us up. After this, I decided that when we get to the pines picnic area to air down, I will go through convoy procedures briefly before we have a recurrence on some of the bush tracks. 

From here, we moved on to the Lost City track. This is a fairly easy track, of which the bottom section is closed, but people can still walk down there to take photos etc. This is where we stopped to have our morning tea break

Once we had finished morning tea, it was off to Sunnyside lookout via a track which follows the power lines for a short distance. This track presented it's first obstacle for Sunny, one of the newbies we had along. There was a steepish, loose section, which had a small rise on the drivers side of the track. Basically, he ran out of momentum & due to a lack of wheel travel, lost grip. We guided him back & instructed him on how to overcome the obstacle & all was OK again. From there, we followed Black Fellows Hand track & then onto Sunnyside track, where Ron had to stop to replace a flat tyre. As it turned out, he was still running highway pressures & there was no convincing him to run them any lower. Other than that, the only other problem on this journey to Sunnyside Lookout, was with Jim, another fairly new person to the club, where there as a downhill section of track. The line down the middle was a little (maybe a foot deep) washed out, the line to the right, was a easy top medium line & the line to the left was an easy line. I went down the middle & managed to lift a wheel, but had no problems. From my understanding over the radio, all was fine, until I heard Darryl put a call over the radio saying I didn't call the difficult section of track. I replied back that I did not see anything difficult about it & as we are all trained 4 wheel drivers, we should all know how to handle that section. We all then proceeded to the lookout, where we parked and had a look at the spectacular views

Once all had taken a good look around here, it was time to head over to the Spanish Steps for lunch & a look, before we proceeded through to camp.

While most of us were preparing lunch, Paul went for a drive to the steps for a little play, I went to have a talk to the people who were working there on the gate & fence for the upcoming track closure. While at the steps, we watched a one litre Sierra come up the track, which although the driver was using plenty of clutch to keep the revs on, he made it all the same. I then hitched a ride back up with Paul to have my lunch, where we passed Gary who was heading down to have a play.

Once lunch was over, I suggested to the group that some of us would attempt the more difficult track down to the steps, while the lesser experienced people should take the easier track.

From there, we all parked above the steps & had a look to work out what lines everyone was going to follow for going down the steps.

For me, I took my usual line, of over near the rock & down the larger steps. My vehicle works quite well down this section & generally both axles seem to go down together, which reduces the risk of hitting the bodywork on the rock.

When I was at the bottom, it was time for the others to follow. Most of them came down the easier line on the left side of the track, under guidance from Darryl & myself, with the exception of Paul, Julie, Darryl & Gary, who opted for the more challenging line.

Once we were all at the bottom, it was time to tackle the next obstacle, a bog hole.

As I had driven through this 2 weeks earlier & it looked no deeper, I dropped into it & to my surprise found it deeper & softer. Unfortunately I didn't make it & after some well layed criticism from Stella, she climbed out for me to have another go at it. Well, after plenty of mud flying around, I realized I was not going to make it, so reversed out & we drove around the obstacle. Again most of the rest followed, except Paul & Gary. Paul had around 6 goes at it before finally deciding on a different line. Unfortunately for him, this line had a deep hole & the little Suzuki went straight into it. After a quick recovery with the snatch strap, he was out of there, and while Gary drove straight through, we went on to the next obstacle, of a log across the track at the approach to a creek crossing.

As this log has been there every time we have tried this track, I looked at it & thought I could make it over. I climbed back into my vehicle & slowly drove up to the log & dropped the front wheels over it. Then, I realized I didn't have enough ground clearance, as they never made it to the ground, not even close. I thought that's OK, I will just push forward & they should make it, but what ended up happening, was gravity took over & just before the front wheels would have hit the ground, the back wheels left the ground, so I had no traction.

After a little rocking, I reversed back off the log & we decided to do a little road building so we could all get through, which we all did with no further incidents.

From there, was proceeded to the rock face, minus Gary & Paul, who went up a very challenging section off to the right. We all made it through with no problems and from there went on to where we collected firewood, before getting back onto Black Fellows Hand Road.

We then followed Black Fellows Hand Rd through some beautiful countryside, including through a small ravine which is quite picturesque before we made it to the Newnes Rd, where we turned right.

As we were getting a little pushed for time to get to camp & set up before dark, we decided that there will be no further stops before we get to camp, so Ron & I both traveled at a fairly normal speed along this good quality dirt rd, while the rest were traveling a little more sedately with the newcomers.

When we arrived at the creek crossing near where we were originally wanted to camp, I decided to wait a few minutes for everyone to catch up & after 5 minutes, decided I would just call Ron to let him know I am going across the creek to check the camp site out. Unfortunately this time the smaller camping area was quite crowded, so we decided to go to the other campsite.

Once there, we starting setting up & then the rest of the convoy arrived.

We set up all our tents and so on & then I decided it would be good to set up the shower tent, but as we were a good distance from the creek, I had to use buckets to carry the water to where we set up the Mcpaul's shower.

Once set up, Stella was first to have a shower & she was quite happy with the temperature etc. I then asked around to see if there were any other takers, and at that point, there weren't. As it was starting to get dark, I set up a fluorescent light from the vehicle above the shower tent & I then had my shower. I reckon these things are great, almost as good as the one at home, the only bad thing being that there is a limit to how much water you can use, but if the bucket is big enough, or pumping directly from a creek, it is excellent.

After my shower we had an extra taker & the comment was that this is great.

After showers were done, it was time for dinner & a few coldies around the fire.

We all had a great chat about the day & went to bed around 10pm.

Around 11:30, it started raining quite heavily. Unfortunately this was not predicted, so I quickly raced around to get as much under cover as I could before going back to bed, forgetting to close the window on the tent, so some of our stuff got a little wet.

The next morning I was up around 05:30 & had fun trying to light the gas burners, which due to the rain, were full of water. I eventually managed to get one alight, so the billy went on first. After that I managed to light another, so was able to start cooking breakfast when Stella gets up.

By that time, everyone else was up (around 06:30) & we started on breakfast (still raining). We also decided as we would be breaking camp at 08:30, I had better erect a portable shelter, as our tent is usually one of the first things we pack into the vehicle.

We were also able to use the portable shelter for a dry sitting area while we ate breakfast.

Once everyone was packed up, we all had a quick chat, Sunny had to leave early for work, so went his separate way & the rest of us headed for Newnes Tip, where we offloaded out rubbish. From there we went into the Gardens of Stone National Park, where we had morning tea.

As we were ahead of schedule for a change, we decided to lengthen the morning tea stop, so people can relax a little, before we head along this slightly rocky track with a few small steps & small ruts, back onto Black Fellow Hand Trail & then back to the Pines area, where there is a toilet etc for those who are brave enough to use them.

From the pines area, we headed down the Glow Worm Tunnels rd which is probably the worst pot hole infected track I have driven.

On almost every corner you have to slow right down due to the depth & number of large pot holes. Being a wet track did not make it any better. Paul decided to take the track which runs parallel, on the eastern side & as it turned out was substantially smoother.

This trail, is apparently the old train line, where the oil shale was transported out of the Newnes Valley & was built by hand back in the 1930s, but now is closed off around 3km from the Glow Worm tunnels by National Parks, which is where we parked & walked the rest of the way to the tunnels.

This walk is a fairly easy walk with a good quality, well marked trail down to the glow worm tunnels.

There is a couple of sets of stairs down to a bridge & back up again, but basically there is nothing overly difficult about this walking trail. When we arrived at the tunnels, out came the torches so we could walk through. This tunnel is a couple of hundred metres long & is a slight curve, so a large portion is completely dark, with the exception of the glow worms, which look like stars against a pitch black backdrop.

We walked through to the other side, where there is a beautiful garden like setting, with the spectacular rocks around an almost untouched bush setting.

From there, I had a quick chat to our walkers about the return track, where some of the more adventurous joined me on the walk back via the creek bed, which is very scenic

As it turned out, this track was a little quicker to get back, as we came out back on the main track about 200m ahead of the rest of the group. We then headed back to the car park, where we had lunch

Once lunch was complete, we headed back towards the Zig Zag railway, via the smoother trail Paul had tried on the way down. This was not a bad track & I think for any future visits to this area, we will include this track. From the Zig Zag, we regathered & headed for home via Kurmond where we stopped for ice creams.

We all had a top weekend & I would like to thank everyone who came along.

Col & Stella