Trip Date:02/11/2014
Trip Leader:Brett Channell
Vehicles attending:10
Members attending:8
Visitors attending:3
Trip Summary:
This trip was put on to introduce any new potential members that we spoke to at the recent 4WD adventure show to our club.
Unfortunately due to my bad planning and timing the trip was not organised early enough to allow reasonable notice to other interested parties.
However with that aside; we all met up around 0830 at the Shell service station and South Bowenfels with only one visitor meeting us there; had some breakfast which took too long to arrive; was entertained by Mark watching him trying to open the toilet door; and following our drivers briefing; we departed at 0920 for Rydal.
We drove to the Rydal Cemetery where we stopped and aired down the tyres and headed off along the Cox River road towards the quarry before turning off towards the pine trees.
Steve AKA (George) had a few minor problems negotiating one of the hill climbs and i am sure the road terrain tyres would not have helped the situation; but with some expert guidance from Mick; he still couldn’t get up the hill; so out came the snatch strap and a little tug did the trick. Continued along the track to the power lines where we headed down towards Mt Walker; negotiated a nice little decent into a small valley where we had some morning tea.
After smoko we continued towards Mt Walker and came across another vehicle on the track and after a bit of a chat I learnt that he was one of the people we spoke to at the show. I invited them to tag along with us for the rest of the day as we headed off to Mt Walker.
We climbed up the side of the mountain to a nice height where we could see a good view of Lake Lyle and the plan was to have lunch at the lookout or viewing spot; but unfortunately as it turned out there was no lookout or place to stop; so we simply parked up in the bush and had some lunch.
After lunch we continued to Mt Walker; however the trip was never planned to traverse to the top of Mt Walker; so once we arrived there it was just a nice walk to the top; (for some anyway) and a few discussions on how we would have tackled the climb; plus a bit of peer pressure from some to attempt it.
I had planned the trip from a topo map and found a route that continued along the track and would have bought us out onto the Great Western Highway; but there was a locked gate that was not shown on the map or the GPS; plus an incredible amount of fallen trees after that fierce wind a few days earlier; so we had to turn around and go back through the quarry. On the way out we found a nice little river crossing that turned out to be reasonably deep in one place and also became held up by another vehicle with a puncture; which all added some excitement to the day; after a little play in the quarry we all aired back up and headed off home.
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