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Wednesday, 14 November 2001

India, Bangalore & Surrounds

Saturday and Sunday - Mysore

In 2001 I travelled to Bangalore on business, and spent a week in this fantastic country, being especially fortunate to have arrived during the Ganesha Festival. Travelling here gave me a zest for overseas travel, especially throughout the Asian region.

Phil and I arrived late at night at Bangalore airport, the air filled with mossies. We changed some money, but had nothing small to tip the guy who offered to carry our luggage, I'm sure he made a very decent living that way.
The car was waiting outside and took us straight to the hotel. We were staying at the Taj West End which is a beautiful hotel with magnificent gardens.


Mark and Cathy picked us up early the next morning and we set off. We were driving to Mysore, and as we drove through Bangalore I got my first real taste of being in another country with a different culture.
We drove along the crowded streets of Bangalore, past shops selling granite slabs and small shanty towns. Soon though we were into the country side, passing many villages and road side stops; the road busy with buses, cars and oxen carts.


We paused on the bridge over the Cauvery River, taking a break from the drive to watch the women washing their clothes in the river, and the kids playing cricket in the fields.
Our first tourist stop was the Summer Palace of Tipu Sultan, Dariya Daulath Bagh at Srirangapatnum. The gardens were superbly kept with the paths geometrically laid out. The teak palace walls were ornately decorated with detailed paintings of Tipu Sultans many victories, protected from the sun and weather by green shades which also protected them from photography.


Next stop was the Gumbaz of Tipu Sultan, his mausoleum where he and his parents are interned. Again it was surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens and lawns, divided symmetrically by wide paths


We explored around the old fort where Tipu held off the British before finally being mortally wounded. We also visited the mosque Masjid-e-aksa adjacent to the mausoleum.


We continued along the road to Mysore, passing a truck loaded with coconut husks. The drivers of the truck were quite proud of their loading skills.


We stopped for lunch at Lalitha Mahal Palace with views over Mysore. We were ushered into a huge dining room with high decorated coloured ceilings and a regal setting. Lunch was absolutely delicious (I do love Indian food). We ventured into another hall were a large group of people were singing and dancing as we had stumbled across a film in production.


Next stop was the Maharaja's Palace, and palatial it was. Inside the huge gates we walked past the Sri Shevta Varahaswami Temple and through large rose gardens being fastidiously tended. We spent ages exploring through the palace, with its grand halls, walls of paintings, the Golden Throne and Silver Door.
We walked around the back of the palace past some palace police who insisted on having their photo taken with us, for a price. Kids played cricket out the front of nearby houses, and came running up to greet us as we passed.
We stayed at The Village, which was very nice, eating dinner at the hotel restaurant.


Next morning we visited Mysore Market exploring around all of the many different food, craft and spice stalls. Inside the entrance was a small shop that sold many varieties of carvings and I picked up a highly detailed teak elephant, complete with white tusks.


As we neared the end of our market visit, a small boy (not the one pictured left!) offered to show us his family's fragrance and oils shop in the old Market section of town. We followed him through the streets of Mysore, as he spoke to us in very fluent English. We politely declined the offer to enter the shop, and made our way to Chamundi Hill.



We visited the Chamundeeswari Temple at the top of the hill, fending off very persistant sellers of soapstone carvings and other trinkets near the gawdy statue of Chamundeeswari. The temple was undergoing renovations, and we didn't venture inside given the long queues, but rather watched the monkeys clamber up the scaffolding.
We continued around the hill, walking down the back steps finally arriving at the Nandi Bull, a huge black stone statue of Nandi.


A flat tyre held us up for a little while, every passer-by offering to help as we had a little trouble working out how to get the spare tyre out of the TaTa. The tyre was soon repaired at one of the many tyre shops and we continued on, passing many heavily worked rice paddies on our way to Somnathpur.
We stopped to take photos of a group working one large rice paddy. We were spotted, and they made their way to our car asking for some small gift.
The Keshava temple was intricately carved and laid out in the shape of a crucifix on a star shaped platform. The walls are carved in rows of high detail; elephants on the lowest layer carrying the weight of those rows above including horses, and men all carved with no repetition. Ganeshas, Shivas and other gods adorned the walls at head height.


Outside the temple are lovely green gardens and some shops where I bought some decorated pillow cases as souviners.
Returning back to our hotel, we stopped at the Golf Course for dinner, arriving in Bangalore at dusk; the sky filled with black crows.

Wednesday - Ganesha Festival


Armed with a packed lunch from the hotel, Mark, Cathy, Earl, Phil and myself all crammed into the Tata for a day trip into the surrounds of Bangalore. First stop was Sravanabelagola.
We climbed the steps up Indragiri Hill, not taking the offer to be carried up. The views were fantastic back across the town and tank to the other huge granite hill enclosing the town.
Gomateshvara stood tall and naked overlooking the temple and the people within; the priest giving out blessings, and the women and children arranging lunch.
Back at the bottom of the mountain I stopped in at a little shop and picked up some small Ganesha statues, whilst a group of men nearby played a game looking very similar to our two-up.


Continuing on through the lovely green countryside we passed many tanks, as well as a natural carwash.


Heavily laden oxen carts became a more common site as we approached the busy little town of Belur. We walked in through the gates of the Channekeshava Temple, closely followed by two young calves.


We paid for a guide to explain the various sites at the temple, which included many intricate carvings of elephants, horses, Ganeshas, Shiva and other dieties.


Inside the temples were huge turned stone columns and carved ceilings. We also found a seven headed golden cobra, wearing lipstick!


Travelling back through town we came across a Ganesha parade, including a real elephant followed by a tractor pulled float with a decorated Ganesha surrounded by kids.


Next stop was the Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebeedu which had in addition to the detailed carvings throughout, two huge Nandi Bull stone statues in separate rooms to the side of the temple.


A young Indian family happily posed by the Nandi.


The rest of my week was spent working, with a few ventures out into Bangalore in the evenings. On my last day I did some shopping at the Government run Cauvery, as well as visiting some department stores and some smaller shops throughout town.

Monday, 5 November 2001

Sheepyard Flats

Camping trip to Sheepyard Flats

Mark, Michelle, James & Liam
Henric & Annaleigh

Saturday

We setup camp at near Pickering's Hut in Sheepyard Flat by the Howqua River.  Yet again there was a multitude of horses along with their riders camping here as well.
River Crossing - Bindaree Hut
We drove up Brock's Road, and from memory drove along 16 Mile Jeep Track, passing some magnificent camp sites along the Upper Howqua.  We crossed the upper reaches of the Howqua and continued on to Bindaree Hut, another magnificent hut and camping area.  We crossed the shallow Howqua after enjoying lunch by the hut and made our way along Bindaree Road, Summit Road and made the steep rocky ascent up Summit Track to Mt Stirling.

Mt Stirling
There was reasonable patches of snow on Stirling, which the kids quite enjoyed playing in.  The views were magnificent, except of course of Buller, which looks pretty sad with the ski runs cut through it.  We continued down Summit Track, onto Clear Hills Track and soon arrived at Craig's Hut, being our first visit.  If we thought the views from Mt Stirling were great, the views from Craig's Hut were magnificent.

Craig's Hut
We continued down Clear Hills Track onto Circuit Road and made our way back to our camp at Sheepyard Flat.  Henric and I went off exploring looking for firewood, and managed to bring back a reasonable supply, only to find that the girls already had the campfire going.  We had an enjoyable dinner followed by some pretty damn good damper with Golden Syrup.

James & Liam playing with fire, again...

Sunday

After the obligatory bacon and eggs breakfast, we drove down to Tobacco Flat, which had some nice camp spots and wasn't as crowded as Sheepyard.  The river crossing looked passable, and others had gone through but we weren't quite up to it today.

Exploring the Slate Mine
We continued up the steep narrow climb out of the valley, and drove along Mitchell's Track to the Slate Mine, and enjoyed the views for short stop.  Mitchell's Track eventually made a sharp decent, though recently regarded to Mitchell's Homestead.  We couldn't explore around here too much as there was a group camping there so we found a quite place beside the river and had our lunch.  We made our way back to camp via Wrens Flat and the Jamieson-Licola Road.

Monday

Monday was a relaxing morning packing up the camp.  We managed to spot a Koala in the campsite on the way out of Sheepyard Flats and we took it easy on the way back home.

Sunday, 14 October 2001

Hamilton Explorer Range Rover Club Trip

A Weekend camping trip with Liam and Mark Linkin

Saturday

This wasn't really a 4WD trip, and the greater majority of the trip was on good quality sealed bitumen.  What this trip was about, was exploring some of the volcanic history of Western Victoria.
Our meeting place was at Lismore at 9:00, which meant a fairly early start from home to get there in time.  After introductions, and a briefing we made our way around the old Flax Mills in Lismore and then headed off to Mt Elephant.  Mt Elephant is a giant scoria cone, but is wholly on private land and we were not able to arrange access to drive up the cone.
We drove on to Lake Bolac, where I suspect Liam influenced one of the other young boys on the trip to fall into the lake and had our morning tea on the rocky shore.  From memory, Lake Bolac was formed by the lava flows blocking old stream beds forming a natural dam.


From Lake Bolac we drove to Penshurst and had our lunch on Mt Rouse.  Quite good views from the fire tower where overlooking the plains, and we could also see quite clearly Mt Napier, which would be our next destination.  After exploring the scoria cones on the face of the volcano, we headed off to Mt Napier and our campsite for the night.
We arrived into Mt Napier State Park from the north, via Buckley Swamp and proceeded to climb to the top of the volcanic cone.  Again we had quite excellent views, and the Western lip of the volcanic crater was missing where the lava had spilled out and flowed out to form the Byaduk lava tubes, which we would explore on Sunday.


I was quite impressed with Liam's climbing, having made it to the top of the volcano easily.  We saw some goats on the side of the cone, and we climbed down into the crater as well before making our way back down the mountain side and getting completely lost on our way back to camp.
The tents were quite hard to pitch, due to the ground consisting entirely of small volcanic stones just below the shallow top soil and grass.  There were also some enormous toadstools growing beneath the trees, which all of the kids found quite fascinating.  A short walk at night to spot any possums and then we were off to sleep for a very noisy night, thanks to a number of koalas.

Sunday


On Sunday we saw some very interesting formations, apparently quite unique in the world where the cooling lava had solidified into rock, then been buckled upwards forming mounds of basalt called tumuli.


These were on a farmers property easily visible from the road through an electrified fence which the kids had great fun with by forming a chain of hands and then grabbing the fence so that all where zapped.


From here we visited the Byaduk Lava tubes, some of which had collapsed ceilings allowing us to enter them and explore by torch light.


We drove along the Henty Highway, which gave us views back across the lava plains to Mt Napier and then made for our lunch destination at Wannon Falls.


The falls were in great form, with a very decent flow of water.  The track down to the falls base was closed, and looked like it had been for a long time.  A new viewing platform had been built at the top of the falls since I had last visited.
After lunch we visited Nigretta Falls further up the Wannon River and then drove up the west side of the Grampians in search of Brolgas, but did not find any.  We cut across the Grampians (on which Road I can't recall) and headed out along some dirt tracks to Moyston and back home.

Saturday, 8 September 2001

Cathedral Ranges Walking Trip

Stephanie, Oiyee, Mark L, Mark F

John, Genevieve & Christopher, and Christopher's friend Corey

Richard & Sarah

The vicious Kookaburra
Stephanie, Mark L, Oiyee and Mark F arrived at Ned's Gully Day Visitor area and set about having Morning Tea whilst we waited for John and Richard to arrive.  Oiyee was just about to place a piece of roll into her mouth when a kookaburra swooped down from behind and took it out of her hand, as well as taking a small piece of her hand and flying back up into a tree.  All I could see from a distance was the flash of brown swooping down at Oiyee, then Oiyee running around in circles!  It was then that we noticed the signs, "Don't feed the birds".  Don't think we really get much choice in it, as they help themselves.

Resting and snacking on the way up
It was not long after that John and Richard arrived, and after introductions we set off up Ned's Gully.  What a great walk up through a gully with a small bubbling creek appearing and disappearing beneath moss covered rocks at the side of the path.  The track soon becomes steeper and eventually comes to a few switchbacks before coming up to Ned's Saddle.  We stopped for a well earned rest on one of the switchbacks for some scroggin and to allow everybody to catch up.
In the saddle, the path branches off into a number of directions on different walks.   We chose the climb up to Cathedral Peak, a quite steep climb up and through broken lichen covered rocks.

Group shot on the ridge
Walking along the ridge
Up on the peak we were treated to magnificent views into the valley.  We stopped and ate our lunch before heading south along the ridge and on down to the Farmyard, with the odd patch of drizzle along the way.  From the Farmyard, we headed down Jawbone Creek, a very steep descent in some places past some large boulders and fern gullies.   We managed to spot a few lyrebirds on the way down near MacLennans Gully.  We climbed up to the Jawbone car park, and continued our walk to Cooks Mill.  Mark L ran from here back to the cars, and brought John's Landcruiser back saving the rest of us from a few kilometres additional walking.  Whilst waiting, we found a Satin Bowerbird and his nest; an impressive collection of all things blue.
Mark finally managed to work out how to get the Cruiser started, and we all piled in and headed back to the car park, seeing a wombat and a few wallabies along the way.   We stopped off at Healesville for chips and gravy before heading on home.

Sunday, 1 July 2001

Toolangi

A Day Trip to Toolangi

Nathan: Landcruiser

Mark, Nick & Liam : Patrol

Scott : Hilux

This was the 4WD Trip from hell. Everything that could go wrong, pretty much did.
I got momentarily stuck in a bog hole. I was able to get out without requiring recovery by rocking backwards and forwards however becoming stuck in this bog hole resulted in the eventual seizing of the air conditioning compressor and an idler pulley, as well as muddy water in under the doors and also the headlights.
Things became worse, and whilst driving on Victoria Range Track, a log on the track corner took out the left step.
Could things get any worse? Well yes; deciding to turn around on another track to avoid a deep boghole resulted in me hitting a tree stump hidden in long grass, denting the bottom of the bull-bar.
Surely that would be the worst of it. No, the clutch that was showing some slight signs of slippage before the trip was pretty much completely burnt out on the trip home travelling up some steep roads out of Yarra Glen. I had to get a tow home.
This was one trip I'd wished I'd stayed home on!

Sunday, 27 May 2001

Lerderderg Range Rover Club Trip

A Range Rover Club Trip to the Lerderderg

Trip Leader:

Paul, Helen, Tim, Megan & Billy Snee: Red Range Rover

Participants:

Lloyd, Sam & Ben Hettrick: Blue Land Cruiser

Mark, Michelle & James Fitzgerald. Oiyee & Aaron: Red GU Patrol

Glen, Merryl, Laura & Jessica Monahan: White Land Cruiser

Bob & Marie Wagg: Red GQ Patrol

Manole & Gabrielle Ioannou: Pewter GU Patrol

Tail End Charlie

Steve, Debbie, Melanie & Dylan Hansen: White Discovery

Written Report:

Michelle & Mark Fitzgerald
We departed from our rendezvous point at the Mobil Roadhouse on the corner of the Western Highway and Hopkins Road pretty much on time, and continued along the Western Highway until the second Bacchus Marsh exit, were we left the highway and made our way north along the Bacchus Marsh – Gisborne Road.
We turned left onto Russells Road, and aired down the tyres before heading off the bitumen proper.  We turned right onto Seereys Road, drove through a small ford and listened to a brief history of the Lerderderg Gorge, from our Tail End Charlie, Steve.
The Wurundjeri Aboriginal tribe lived in the vicinity West of Melbourne, and would hunt the plains and hills of the Lerderderg Gorge, leaving signs such as scarred trees.
European occupation occurred in the 1830's with pastoral runs, followed by miners in the 1850's with the discovery of gold. Not much gold was found in the area, but there are many mine shafts, often covered with sleepers and dirt.  Since the sleepers would have long rotted away, we were warned to be careful when seeking out lemon trees.
At the end of Seereys Road we turned right onto Blue Gum Track, and continued climbing upward. Coming around a corner, I could hear what sounded like a car horn and was wondering why somebody was repeatedly pressing their horn when we saw this huge Wedge Tailed Eagle perched in a dead tree at the side of the track. The Eagle left the tree and flew above Paul's car a short distance before veering right and soaring down into Nuggety Gully.

We turned right onto Ractcliffe Track and left onto No. 1 Fire Track (Marked still as Ractcliffe Track on our map). Some members of the group spotted Wally the Wombat, as well as a few wallabies along this section. The track was also lined with many Pink Heath; Victoria's National Floral Emblem. We continued along the track down to the ford at Middle Creek, climbed the steep exit out and continued along till Firth Road.
We turned left onto Firth Road, passing many trail bikes and turned right onto Saltwater Track were we picked up a 4WD wannabe Blue Gemini. We then turned left onto Lloyd Track, which gave us our first 4WD challenges for the day. The track was slightly overgrown, wet and rutted.
We drove down into a muddy rutted dip and climbed up through the other side. Somewhere amongst all the mud was a concrete pipe, which Bob and Marie's diff managed to find, hanging them up. They were snatched backwards and made it through the second time with a bit more momentum. Further along this track, we came to a bog hole with some steep, wet, muddy, rutted climbs leading further up the track.
Paul attempted the climb first, but the ruts were too deep, and his diff was grinding into the track. Paul and a few others turned off into a sidetrack. Lloyd gave it a try and was able to make it up with locking assistance. I followed, and was soon hung on my diffs. With front and rear lockers on, and after a number attempts on two separate parts I was also up and through. Glen followed next, and similarly with locking assistance and a few tries was also through and up. The rest of the group headed back down Lloyd track while we continued on up and through to Burnt Hill Road where we stopped for our morning tea while we waited for the others.
After morning tea, we made our way to Johnson's Corner, and headed right onto Firth Road, which we followed into Firth Park to meet up with the others.

After lunch, and some beautiful Choc Chip and Banana & Choc Chip muffins (Thanks Helen!), we headed off again, around 2:00pm. We turned right onto Firth Road, and then left down Mill Road and left again onto XL Track, which was starting to get wet again, and had quite a number of puddles. We turned left onto XL Link Track, which was slightly overgrown and had quite a few long bog holes, including the bog of eternal stench. The next bog hole was deceptively deeper at it's end which almost stuck one of the cars, and a few more bog holes later we turned left onto Chettle Track, which was well graded with only a few potholes; much to Steve's relief.
Oh, and a special thankyou to our bog hole and pothole monitor.
We turned right off Chettle Track onto Diggers Track, which wound it's way down to a muddy ford through Digger's Creek. We were going to climb up through Upper Chadwick Track, however another convoy of 4WDs coming down that way was blocking the path, so we continued on Diggers Track, past Possum Track which was closed and on up to O'Brien's Road.
We turned right onto O'Brien's Road and drove down to O'Brien's Crossing where we stopped for a while to let the kids run around and try to throw as many rocks into the river that they could find.
About 3:30pm the rain started to come down, so we turned around and headed back along O'Brien's Road, turning right into Blue Gum – O'Brien Link Track. We followed this track in light rain through some 4 bog holes, and then made our way through a narrow gate and left onto Blue Gum Track. Turning right onto O'Brien's Road, and right onto Firth Road saw us back onto the Bacchus Marsh – Gisborne Road, and heading back home around 4:00pm.
Paul and Lloyd went back to attempt the Nuggety Track, which had some challenging muddy rutted tracks.  They made a few attempts to travel North along this track, but were unsuccessful.  The track would be easier in the opposite direction.

Track Summary

Seereys Road

2WD dirt road

Blue Gum Track

2WD dirt road

Ractcliffe Track/No. 1 Fire Trail

Easy to medium, 4WD track with creek crossing and steep rocky ascent.

Firth Road

2WD dirt road

Saltwater Track

2WD dirt road

Lloyd Track

4WD hard. Wet and deeply rutted with bog holes. Bog holes had solid base. Recovery likely.

Burnt Hill Road

2WD dirt road

Mill Road

Easy 4WD

XL Track

Easy 4WD, wet with puddles but solid base.

XL Link Track

Easy to medium 4WD. Slightly overgrown, wet with a number of bog holes, all with solid bases.

Chettle Track

Easy.

Digger's Track

Easy.

O'Brien's Road

2WD dirt road

Blue Gum - O'Brien Link Track

Easy, wet with some bog holes with solid bases. Narrow gate at exit on a right angle to track.

Blue Gum Track

Easy.

Nuggetty Track

Hard.   Was not completed successfully in northward direction.  Would probably be medium to hard in southerly direction.

Sunday, 20 May 2001

Eildon MVO Range Rover Club Trip

A group 4WD trip around Eildon


Trip Leaders

Peter & Mollie McGregor

Discovery Series 2

Landrover Owners Club

Participants

Roger & Brenton Stewart

Landrover Series 3

Landrover Owners Club

Gerald Wolmer

Landcrusier MWB

Landrover Owners Club

Rod, Christine, Rachael, Hanna,

    Miriam & Naomi White

Defender

Landrover Owners Club

Phil & Helen Rubinstein

Landcruiser Series 80

David & Caitlin Danks

Discovery

Landrover Owners Club

Ian & Daniel Matthews

Range Rover

Landrover Owners Club

Michael Smith

Landrover Series 3

Landrover Owners Club

Rob & Barbara Hillman

GU Patrol

Pajero Club

Mark Fitzgerald & Mark Linkin

GU Patrol

Range Rover Club

Report: Mark Fitzgerald

Photos: Mark Linkin, Mark Fitzgerald

This trip was so popular, that it what was broken into two groups.  This report is specifically for Group 2, with Group 1 being led by John Hassler and Jim Parker.

Saturday, 19th May.

View from Powerline Track
We met at the Ranger Station across from The Orchard campground, on Walshes Road Goughs Bay, and departed pretty close to the agreed time of 10:00.  We headed off Walshes Road into the Delatite Plantation State Forest along a well graded road following the high voltage power transmission lines. 

Morning Tea on Highett Point Track
This took us up to our morning tea location on Highett Point Track.

Highett Point Track
We continued along Highett Point Track, which offered many spectacular views across the Delatite Arm of Eildon until we reached Harrops Hills, where a wallaby, many kangaroos and even a wombat were spotted before our descent down to Delatite Plantation Road.
We stopped for lunch at one of the many camping grounds (possibly Dumbells Campsite) along Delatite Plantation Road, where Mollie and Mark Linkin spotted a White Bellied Sea Eagle.  After lunch, we continued along to the end of Plantation Road and then climbed up a 4WD drive track, with one very short quite steep section before coming down and around Maintongoon Inlet.

Climb near Parker Point
We made it to Middle Camping Ground on Maintongoon Inlet very early, around 2:30pm.   After setting up tents, we, gathered enough firewood to last the night, threw the Aerobie around for a while, then settled down around a glorious campfire for dinner, where many interesting stories and some kindly treats from Gerald of stewed persimmons in Muscat, and chocolate were all shared.

Quinces around the campfire
The night was perfectly clear and the number of stars and the view of the Milky Way was absolutely breathtaking.  A number of shooting stars were also spotted.

Sunday, 20th May

Reluctant to depart
We awoke to a cool morning, with the whole campground shrouded in mist.  It was quickly acknowledged that the planned departure time would require revising.  We all ate our breakfast and then packed up our tents.   We mingled around the warmth of the fire as long as possible before drowning it with water.  We were all packed and ready to go around 10:00, and headed up the spur.

Stillman's Point
We drove around Woolshed Inlet heading towards Stillmans Point, driving through foggy conifer forest, before doubling back towards Stillman Track.  The track climb appeared steep, and I was volunteered to ascend first as my Patrol was fitted with difflocks.  I didn't get far, hanging my truck on the cross cut drain but the difflocks did get me over.  I was able to make the climb without locking assistance, and called the rest up.  Roger, Michael and Gerald decided that they would head back to Goughs Bay on the 2WD track, the rest of the convoy made it up the climb with no problems.  The climb up towards Mount Enterprise was the first real 4WDing we had done on the trip, but was not too difficult.  The track was reasonably steep in some sections, and had some loose rock.

Above the clouds, Stillman's Track
The views all around were fantastic, being above the fog which was sitting in all of the arms of Eildon as far as we could see.  By the time the last truck climbed up, all of the fog had burned away and we had some morning tea before continuing along across the top of Mount Enterprise towards Stillman Plateau.  We were able to see across to the Mariner at Anderson Harbour on the other side of Lake Eildon, and also the dam wall before arriving at some old concrete footings and wire guy ropes, which were the supports for some long gone pylons of past transmission lines.  We stopped for lunch on Stillman Plateau, amongst some very "Middle Earth" tall tress and bracken.  Stillman Track through this area was recently graded, and easily 2WD.

Powerlines spanning Lake Eildon
After lunch, we continued along Stillman Track, arriving back on Highett Point Track heading East and then turning South towards the 2.25km power transmission line spanning across Lake Eildon.  Much debate was held over the means in which the transmission lines were hung across the lake.

Allan's Peak Track
We then back tracked, to Highett Point Track, and headed East along Allan Peak Track, which had many reasonably steep ascents and descents on rocky slightly rutted tracks before reaching Allans Peak.  At this point radio contact was made with Group 1, which was surveying around the Jerusalem Creek area.  We then all headed down the steep descent from Allans Peak into the Pine Plantations around Goughs Bay.  The descent was quite steep and rocky,and we were rewarded at the bottom by watching some trail bike riders try unsuccessfully to climb the track.  We made our way through the maze of tracks in the pine forest, having to remove a pine tree that had fallen across the track with the drag chain before arriving in Goughs bay and heading off home our various ways.

Track Summary (All tracks were dry):

Walshes Road

2WD gravel road

Walshes Rd to Highett Point Link Track

2WD gravel road

Highett Point Track

Easy 4WD track with some moderate ascents and descents.

Delatite Plantation Road

2WD gravel Road

Stillman Point Track

Easy to medium, with some moderately steep ascents in Stillmans Point/Mount Enterprise area, becoming easy 2WD graded road in Stillmans Plateau area.

Allan Peak Track

Medium, tending to hard in some places though no recoveries were required.  Steep ascents and descents on uneven rocky tracks.  Long steep descent from Allans Peak to Goughs Bay.