Warburton

A 4WD trip with:

Nathan/Mark/Clint:
Toyota Landcruiser
Mark/Michelle/James/Liam/Warren:
Nissan Patrol
Matt/Jocelyn:
Holden Jackeroo

Well, this was my first trip out with other cars since the training trip, and my first trip where things got a little rougher than anticipated.

Though we had the Gladysville topographic map for this area, the actual tracks that we went down are unclear, though in retrospect I think I have them recorded accurately.

From memory, we headed towards Warburton from Melbourne on the Warburton Highway, and turned right down Old Warburton Rd before reaching Warburton.  We drove to the site of Old Warburton, and from here headed up Cemetery Track to the top of Mount Tugwell.  Cemetery Track was reasonably steep (at least it seemed that way to me then) with regular cross cut- drains.  It was also very severely rutted.  At the top we turned right onto Justice Creek track and started heading down.  This track was overgrown at the start, and we were out with machetes and axes clearing the path a little better.  The track got steeper, and on one corner I slid into a rut causing the back bumper of my truck to tap the embankment, popping and breaking the left tail light.  Spewing, but this was one of the prophecies given on the driver training course.

We came across a muddy bog hole on this track, which  Nathan had to winch out of, and I had to be snatched out of.  I had tried to reverse out of it, which proved the end of my splash guard, which cracked when dragged back through the mud.  Matt took the soft option and found a way to drive around it, though this posed it's own risk taking him close to the steep drop into the valley.  We all would most likely have been able to make it through the bog hole, if it wasn't for the tree root through the middle of it which was too high and slippery to get the wheels over.

We stopped for lunch at a road junction where Justice Creek track continued to the left, and another track headed back to Old Warburton.  We then headed up Mount Bride Road and back across Mount Tugwell, where Nathan headed down Justice Creek Track again.  I gave it a miss this time, and Matt had already packed up and gone home.

We headed back down Mount Bride Road and waited for Nathan at Old Warburton before heading off back home.

Track Summary & Travel Times

Track Name	Surface	Travel Time	Average Speed
Cemetery Track	Clay 4WD. Steep and rutted with many cross cut drains	Not recorded	Not recorded
Justice Creek Track	Hard difficuly. Some overgrown sections. Wet and slippery with some steep descents. Rutted and a couple of bog holes. Recoveries required.	Not recorded	Not recorded

Murrindindi State Forest

A 4WD trip with Mark, Michelle, James, Liam, Sharon, and Shannon

This was another trip from the 4WD Adventures book.  We took Michelle's sister Shazzy, and her daughter on this one.  Generally, it was not a very interesting trip, both from a 4WD point of view, as well as the scenery taken in as most of this trip was through the logging area of Black Range.  Apart from one road (Luke's No 1 Track), all of the tracks were easily suitable for 2WD, and so as an introduction to 4WDing for Shazzy, it wouldn't have been a good trip.

The one highlight of the trip was the discovery for us of the Murrindindi River, and it's camping grounds.  We've been back there a number of times to try some fishing, and I plan to spend a weekend there some time soon camping.

Of course, this area near Toolangi, and the Black Range State Forest has some fantastic 4WD tracks, some of which we have explored on subsequent trips.

Bunyip State Forest

A 4WD trip with Mark, Michelle, James, Liam, Arthur and Glenda  

Michelle bought me a book of 4WD Adventures close to Melbourne, which contains a number of easy 4WD trips which we have been trying out. As the trips are fairly easy (even the medium/hard ones), they can be attempted without a companion car in good weather. The trip to Bunyip State Park was a most enjoyable trip. We took Michelle's parents, Arthur and Glenda as well as both of our kids. We started our trip at the Gembrook Market, which is quite a large market and well worth a visit. From there we pretty well followed the prescribed trip notes, with the only exception being a couple of minor wrong turns, and a large backtrack and drive around due to a fallen tree which completely blocked our track.

Mortimer Picnic Area was nice enough, and seemed to be a popular staging point for trail bike riders.

Four Brothers Rocks was worth the visit, and gave excellent views of the park to the North. There were a number of more difficult tracks off the prescribed route that would be worth a visit if travelling with another truck, and we also saw some promising camping sites along the Bunyip River though I'd want to go back and check them out in more detail before choosing any particular one.

Tea Tree Road I would class as border line on driving on without a second vehicle, and would be quite slippery if wet, which it was a little on our trip.

Gentle Annie Gap Picnic Area was a reasonable spot for lunch. We drove out to Warragul to visit Michelle's brother, before heading back home to Melbourne on the bitumen.

4WD Driver Training Day

The driver training that we did was organized by SafeTrek, located in Brunswick Victoria.  Earlier in the week, I attended an evening of theory, which ran through many invaluable techniques of 4WDing.  Some of these tips will be posted on this website, however there is no substitute for attending such a course in person, as well as getting lots of practice in different situations and with other people.  The actual practice day was great fun, and represented the first real 4WDing that I had been on as a driver.

We met at the Glenburn Service Station at 9:00am where Jim and Norman ran through the various activities that we would be doing for the day, as well as pointing out the benefits and problems with each of our vehicles.   They went through the departure and approach angles, as well as the recovery points on each truck.  They also indicated what we would likely loose or damage, such as towing points, tail pipes, and on the Patrol the mud flaps and tail lights.  Apparently they are popped out of the bumper bar quite regularly!

After going through each car and the details of convoy procedure we were off for some action.  We turned down Two Hills Road where we stopped to let down the tyres.  One car lost the valve and was forced to change to the spare, which was of a very poor standard.  During the day, we practised many of the techniques that we had discussed on the theory night, as well as explored the capabilities of each of our vehicles.  We drove through deep mud, up and down reasonably steep hills where we practised stall-stop and key-start techniques.  We practised some snatch recoveries, drove over fallen logs, through ruts and generally had a great time.

The picture to the left was of me driving through a deep mud hole.  We got through with no problems, as did most of the cars before us though a few did require snatching out, including a brand new Pajero which some people had hired to bring along on the trip!

Lerderderg Gorge

This was a trip from the 4WD Adventures Close to Melbourne Book.  We quite enjoyed this trip, and it showed us some nice bush locations that we had never explored before.   We pretty much followed the book to the letter, which got us down a very steep track due to a typo in the book.  This was my first steep ascent and descent and was before we did the driver training, so there was a bit of anxiety, but we made it back up with no dramas.

We also did a couple of small river crossings, which were quite fun but very safe and tame for our first attempts.

The bush in this region was very dry in contrast to a forest like Toolangi.  I'm not sure if this is typical of this area, or attributable to the drought that has plagued here for the previous many years.

Our trip started proper with us leaving the Western Highway at the first Bacchus Marsh exit, and heading right onto Bacchus Marsh - Gisborne Road.  Much to Michelle's delight, we found a huge Trash & Treasure market at Darley Park, which we explored for a couple of hours before continuing.  We headed left onto Lerderderg Gorge Road, then turned right onto Camerons Road.  This soon became dirt, where we did the air down on the tyres before continuing.  Camerons Road became Blue Gum Track, which we followed until turning right onto Ractcliffe Track.  The trip notes indicated a right hand turn off this track, which took us down a very steep bit of track, the difficulty of which seemed beyond what we would have expected this book to send us along. The track levelled before continuing further, so we got out and walked it and decided that the track was too steep to attempt on our own, and that the trip notes must have been incorrect.  We turned around and headed back up and left, which turned out to be the correct direction.  A later look at the book's Web Page showed that the trip notes in the book are indeed incorrect. Beware when following this trip in the book!

We did our first ever river crossing in our car at Middle Creek.  This was quite shallow but some large rocks in the middle of the creek gave some concern, but we managed to get around them and make the steep rocky ascent out and onwards.  We followed this track to Firth Road, which took us to Firth Park.  This was a nice treed park with toilets and BBQ's, though I wouldn't use the BBQ's here since somebody had defecated on one of them.

We joined up on XL Track, which had many water filled potholes allowing us to get the car respectfully dirty.  There are a few mines in this area which we must go back and explore one day.  XL Track descended to a creek crossing over Sardine Creek, and then brought us up to O'Briens Road.  We headed down to O'Briens Crossing, which had some nice camping spots, and was a very popular location, with many people camped and fishing here.  We stopped by the river near a river crossing so that James and Liam could have a swim.  While we were here, a group of trail bike riders crossed the river, which the kids thought was quite fun to watch.  We didn't do this crossing in the car as we were on our own, and I had no real experience in crossings.  We will have to go back one day and cross here, as there is an old mine on the other side of the river according to the map.

The trip out was on standard 2WD quality dirt roads, and we headed back to Melbourne via Trentham and down the Calder Highway.