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Attendee's
Darren McRae, Graeme "Golly" Roly, Spewie, GG, GG2,
Walter B, the GC's, The Phibbs, Camshaft stephens, Steve Dalli
"Lahma", and Toni, Victor and friends
Friday.
We set of at Midday to head to Woods Point, meeting some of our
Sydney participants at Mansfield Tyre Service to fit Rolys
secondair beadlocks. These secure the tyre to the rim and allow
very low tyre pressures that will be required to run in the deep
snow over the weekend.
Most were at the pub by dinner time - even Greg G, who had been
towed a much of the way between Mansfield and Woods Point, due to
the 40 having a fuel pump haemorrhage after filling at Mansfield.
We all sunk a few cold ones until the publican closed the bar at
1am, and we headed to bed to dream of the deep white mud we would
be in tomorrow.
Saturday.
We got up, had our cooked Woods Point breakfast, and were set for
a 9am start to play in the snow. Half way up Johnston Hill track,
Greg G's early morn fuel pump repairs seemed to have not been
enough to keep the 454 happy, so he quickly returned the 40 to the
pub, and Walter also returned to pick the 2 occupants up, and let
them experience 100TD comfort {a real factory TD!} for the day.
We drove allot of snow covered country over Mt Selma, to Connors
Plain for smoko, at a nice hut which fitted us all in out of the
falling snow. Walter and GG missed our turn and got to enjoy each
others company at another hut, past where we were, and tagged on
as we went past heading for Mt Skene summit, and lots more snow.
As we climbed Skene the snow got gradually deeper and softer and
the underlying wheel tracks of previous weeks of attempts to drive
on the snow were making the task of pushing tracks for all to
follow a little difficult. Roly
extracted me backward a few times and I extracted him once or
twice, as the UHF radio was alive with instructions from people
further back in the convoy all recovering one another also, looked
like we were all having fun.
At the top of the last uphill section, I decided to return back
the way we
came, to ensure we got lunch in, and back to the pub for tea at a
reasonable time. It turned out to be a wise decision given the
time it took for everyone to get back in the wheel tracks we had
already made. We had lunch at Crowes hut in the falling snow, then
hightailed it back toward Woods Point pub. Despite Mr Dalli's best
efforts to make us late, by falling off the snow covered roads, we
managed a normal tea time, and got into the bar so everyone could
get into some serious elbow bending and ear twisting. [Go the
Lions]
The last of us went to bed once the bar closed about 130am, all
seeming much merrier than we had been before we hit the bar.
Sunday.
With people straggling to make our 9am start, we decided it
would be best to not try and make Skene summit today, given we had
few Sydney people who had to make a 730pm flight from Melbourne.
We headed to the best track in the area, Brewery track, for the
boys to have a play, where none managed to get up the first 40ft,
despite some strong efforts, so we headed for Frenchmans gap,
which was under snow from the turnoff. Along here we turned off to
Corn Hill track, and across Ryans, mostly in snow, onto Mt
Terrible track, and stopped at the summit for lunch, with sweeping
views of Buller, and all the snow covered hills of the local high
country area.
After lunch we pumped up tyres, headed down Peoletti's track, [inc
the steep shortcut] and out onto the bitumen about 5km out of
Jamieson on the Woods Point side, and after parking up while Roly
tried to drain some water from his fuel filter separator, we hit
Mansfield, all got a serve of junk food and drink, and said our
goodbyes.
Another great 80 trip, with some great 80 people, to a great
location,
Thanks to everyone who attended, and hope to see you on the 80 Aus
LCOOL annual xmas trip this year.
Darren McRae.
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