Watagans Day Trip - 8th September 2007
Attendees: (Victoms)
Charles and Brettie - Nissan GQ
Steve - Toyota 70 series
Tapper - Toyota 80 series
Stevo and Pete - Nissan GQ
Edward - Toyota 60 series
Glenn and Sarah - Nissan GQ SWB
Kevy - Nissan GQ
Bresh - Nissan GQ
Wazza and Nick - Toyota 40 series
We all met at the double servo on the F3 at about 8.15 am on Saturday morning, We took the sparks road exit and made our way to the cemetery where we were ready to meet up with Wazza, Nick and Bresh . Wazza towed his comp truck on his new very impressive trailer which is better than his last one (which had de-tachable wheels, ask him).
Charles was our trip leader and had about five tracks lined up for us to do, so we headed off to the first one which is called whitemans lane, I asked Charles how wet he thought it was going to be and he said it would be ok because they hadn’t had much rain !!!!!!
Well driving into whitemans they got about 10 meters before they backed back down and locked hubs and announced that we may need to adjust our tyre pressures. It was like driving on Bloody butter, and about two tyre revolutions had your tyres looking like they were 20 inch wide slicks, good one Charles.
We made our way up the track to what was to be our first obstacle, in the dry just a rut, in the wet a deep bottomless cavern, there was a line around it which most people took, but I thought I could straddle it. Wrong the back tyre slid in, and. The 80 was lying on its side step, the boys hooked up my winch and with both lockers I managed to skull drag myself out. I had extremely low oil pressure due to the angle but No damage luckily, just pride.
We made it up to the bottom off the first rock section, where we faced about a 4.5 to 5 foot rock ledge which can be driven with the right line. Most people drove it with a few numbers and some, just need a small pull and we were all up, the track basically consists of rock ledges all the way to the top, which in turn was causing a few people tyre issues, Kevy had one front and one rear simex give him grief, including carby issues. While these were being fixed we had lunch as it was about 12.00 o’clock by now.
After lunch it was time for an assault on the rest of this hill, with rock packing, line picking, tree driving (ask Glenn about this very special technique), diving out of the way of on coming traffic, negotiating down poors, yelling, cheering, reving, and myself falling off the side of the track, second lay over and again no damage just pride.
We all drove over the summit of this hill at about 3.30 pm, this is where kevy left us, he had to pick up his kid at about 2.00 pm.
The general consensus was to head out via a track called zig zag which was basically down hill and a couple of small bog holes on the way out this would save us a bit of time, and bring us out really close to where we met and Wazza’s truck was parked.
Coming down a few rock ledges at the beginning of the descent was the start to our evening session its about 4.00 pm, when Edward blows a C.V joint trying to back up to change his line on a particular steep tricky bit, I believe Glenn came to the rescue and retrieved him from the rear, on getting out of his vehicle its lurched forward with the only person in the vehicle at the time being Sarah and she was sitting in the passenger side. The vehicle has ended up hanging over the edge of the track with a fair drop in front of it, 90 degrees to the down hill slope, that was lucky. This all happened while it was raining fairly heavily, then Wazza blew a C.V doing the same thing.
All down at the bottom all we have to do now is negotiate a bit of mud and we are out, Brettie had a go at the first bog hole that we came to which stopped him fairly quickly and he got snatched out by Steve in the 70 series. The bypass track around this quagmire seemed to be the smart choice as we were running out of light and the rain hadn’t eased the bypass track was also now becoming a obstacle, Edward tried to get up onto it in two wheel drive which didn’t happen and got stuck, so Steveo in the GQ wagon tried snatching him over in turn peeled a tyre of the rim, so its 5.30 pm, raining, Glenn and Sarah have to pick there son up at 6.00pm we have 15 minutes of light left Edward has no front drive and only 3 tyres on his truck and we still have 3 trucks to get through one being Wazza who also is now only 3 wheel drive.
This DAY trip may sound familiar to some of you but the difference is im not running this one!!!!
The boys got it all sorted and Edward mobile again and we drove out of the Watagans at about 7.00 pm, we all aired up back at our original meeting spot and said our good by and hit the F3.
The day in summary; I had a good day and I think all of those that attended did to, there were a few anxious moments, but the true club spirit came out again and again through out the day. Thanks Charles for putting on the trip and I look forward to wheelin with you all in the not to distance future.
Tapper