Crooked River Cup Weekend 4WD and Camping Trip

Participants: Henric, Cory, Michelle, Mark, James & Liam

Saturday 30th October 2004

This is the trip were I learnt that planning out a trip in detail, picking the tracks you wish to travel on, and estimating where you will be camping for the night doesn't match what will happen in reality...

It all started well enough, Henric and Cory were around at our place early on Saturday morning, and the cars were all soon packed ready to go. There was some last minute artistic arrangement of the food into the car fridge, but once we were sure we'd taken advantage of every skeric of space we were off on our travels.

The first alteration to the plan came some hours down the road when the turnoff from Woods Point Road marked clearly on all the maps I have just didn't exist in reality. Reversing, backtracking and double checking eventually showed a small overgrown goat track so we continued along Woods Point Road into Woods Point, and took advantage of the last civilised toilets we expected to see for a little while. Oh, we also took time out to enjoy an ice-cream.

Woods Point is certainly a lovely town worthy of some time, but today we had grander travel plans. Our first bit of 4WDing had us climbing the Old Coach Road. It's hard to imagine horse drawn coaches being dragged up this narrow winding dirt track. We stopped at a switch back near the top to let the air down in the tyres to a safe and comfortable pressure.

The Old Coach Road joined up with Webber Spur Track at the site of the Mountain Home Hotel. We looked around for any remains of the old hotel, only spotting a bit of rusting iron. There wasn't much left of the sawmill site either as we continued along Webber Spur Track along the ridge top, through a number of shallow bog holes.

Webber Spur gradually descended, giving us some great views off into the distance before rising again to a helipad where we took a breather and enjoyed the panorama.

The descent from the helipad down Webber Spur was reasonably steep, and the girls decided to walk down, not trusting either the cars or the drivers, or maybe both. Walking down was certainly the harder way of getting to the bottom, and they did call half seriously for us guys to drive back up and pick them up.

All back in the cars, we passed Baileys mine on the side of the track and continued along what was marked as a walking track on the map, but was clearly an alternate 4WD track, even if a little steep at times.

The nerves of the girls were soon put to the test with the final descent to the Goulburn River. This was very steep, dropping straight down the spur and falling 100 metres in a distance of 280 metres. Something most definately to be avoided in the wet.

We set up for lunch on the banks of the Goulburn River, enjoying the hot dogs and trying a bit of fishing and gold panning as well as chatting about our journey so far. This was Cory's first 4WD trip, as well the first for a while for Michelle, so there were a few comments about the steep tracks experienced so far.

Given that lunch was about 2:00PM, and we had ommitted a good portion of 4WDing already from the original plan, it was starting to become evident that the anticipated travel time, and the total time expected to be driving before reaching our campsite was grossly underestimated...

With lunch sorted out and the fishing unsuccessful, we tackled our first (of very many) river crossings on this trip. The Goulburn was quite shallow, and we all made it across easily and up the steep exit on the other side of the river.

We were now on Champion Spur, which rises quickly between the Goulburn and Black Rivers. The track soon descended again, and take a look again at the picture. Yes, that is us driving up a creek. Now before you get all high and mighty and start spouting about Tread Lightly, the track actually follows the creek. And what a great track it was; driving up the thickly planted creek bed pushing our way through tree ferns we both managed to get stuck. Henric sitting on his diff on a rocky ledge in the middle of the creek which he managed to get over on his own, and myself resting on my step on the rocky creek bank, requiring winching to get over.

The track continued in the creek bed for a total of over 300 metres and we had just gotten back onto proper dry track when the creek got it's revenge on Henric. He had slipped off the track into the creek at the very last small crossing leaving the back of his car firmly wedged against the drop-off, and the front left wheel a good foot into the air. Clearly the Pathfinder was not going anywhere without recovery. As I was behind with the winch, we hooked up a tree protector and snatch block to a tree in front of Henric and managed to winch him forward and out.

We were now climbing Burnt Camp Spur, which eventually rejoined Champion Spur. Time was passing quickly and it was evident we would not make our planned campsite on the Maccalister River any time before dark.

We considered camping down near the crossing of the Black River, however the descent had been quite steep, and we figured if it rained over night, then we'd pretty well be spending the whole long weekend down here so we continued on, planning to camp at Rumpff Flat on Mount Skene Creek.

We crossed the Black River and climbed out of the valley, eventually arriving at the heavily logged area near the Heyfield Jamieson Road. The road naming isn't very imaginative here, but at least you know where the road comes from and where it goes too. And it's certainly better named than the N14, N13 N12, N11 and N10 tracks we passed branching off before we turned down McMillan Track! Now we were getting somewhere! This track even had two names, being also known as Morris Road. Though a road it certainly wasn't.

Surprisingly, and despite all expectations we arrived at Rumpff Flat before dark. The place was crowded and so we continued up Middle Ridge Road to avoid the crowds and soon came to a magical grassed and empty secluded spot on a bend of Mount Skene Creek. The perfect campsite. It wasn't long before the tents were up, the fire going and the BBQ sizzling away.

Track Summary & Travel Times

Track Name	Surface	Travel Time	Total Distance	Avg Speed	Min Alt	Max Alt
Home to Healesville	Highway	42 minutes	41km	59km/hr	58 metres	233 metres
Healesville to Marysville	Highway	46 minutes	34km	44km/hr	90 metres	528 metres
Marysville to Woods Point	2WD Gravel	1 hour 32 minutes	85.8km	55km/hr	424 metres	1209 metres
Old Coach Rd	4WD	11 minutes	4.5km	25km/hr	708 metres	1111 metres
Webber Spur Track	4WD, some very steep descents	1 hour 19 minutes	8.7km	6.5km/hr	476 metres	1133 metres
Champion Spur Tk (from Goulburn River to Burnt Camp Tk exit)	4WD, shallow river crossing, some steep ascents	8 minutes	1km	7km/hr	461 metres	552 metres
Burnt Camp Tk	4WD Hard, recoveries. Travel through overgrown creek bed	1 hour 35 minutes	6.8km	4km/hr	515 metres	1028 metres
Champion Spur Tk (from Burnt Camp Tk exit to Champion Spur Link Tk exit	4WD	19 minutes	4.9km	15km/hr	1028 metres	1196 metres
Champion Spur Link Tk	4WD, steep ascents/descents with shallow crossing of Black River	49 minutes	12km	15km/hr	653 metres	1303 metres
Morris Rd	4WD	18 minutes	7km	23km/hr	490 metres	1199 metres

Mt Terrible and Enoch Point

Michelle's Mum had a High School friend visiting from England who she wanted to show a bit of mountain Victoria to. The tracks to Craig's Hut were still closed off for the winter, so we decided to head up to Mt Terrible as it is an easy 4WD Trip from Melbourne, and the views are most spectacular.

We dropped into Burnt Bridge Camp Ground on Big River and did a quick bit of fishing. I "caught" a nice sized brown trout after only a few casts with a lure. I say "caught", as he managed to escape just as I was landing him. I would have released him anyway, so he saved me the trouble of getting the hook out I suppose.

We tried some fishing further upstream without success, so next stop was Enoch Point. We had lunch at the day visitors site by the river, and were visited by a Satin Blue Bowerbird. After lunch we walked upstream to Enoch Falls, a small cascade but worth the walk. Even though we had to cut through a few blackberries to get there. I cut through all of these blackberry bushes with the machette so Liam could get through without getting torn to pieces; but he tripped over and fell on all the cut blackberries anyway!

After lunch we went looking for the cemetary, but it wasn't easily visible from the road so it is left for another trip. We climbed Dane Spur Track, and were soon at the summit of Mt Terrible.

Liam, Arthur and I went off searching for a geocache that we knew was up here, finding it easily on the the side of the mountain. Liam scored a wibbly wobbly bouncy ball, and we dropped off Myrtle the Dancing Turtle Travel Bug.

We returned to the hut and enjoyed the views to Buller which was still covered with snow.

It was time to start heading home, so we returned down the mountain via Newmans Track. There were some spectacular views over Lake Eildon to the north as the track steadily descended back down to the Eildon-Jamieson Road.

We dropped into Snobs Creek Falls on our return journey. The falls were in very good flow due to recent rains and snow melt, and well worth the short detour to visit them.

Geocaching

I'd heard about geocaching a while back, but suddenly got the bug to actually give it a go, and what a great new activity. Geocaching is simply using your GPS to locate hidden caches that others have placed, sometimes at the specified co-ordinates, and other times you need to follow multiple coordinates to build up clues. Our first caching trip was a success, taking us to a familiar location, though down a walking track we hadn't tried before. We spotted an echidna and a kangaroo along the track as we were hunting out the cache. Not only did we find the cache, but it also contained a Travel Bug. A Travel Bug is a tagged item, whos progress from one cache to the next can be followed over the internet. They also usually have an objective or mission. Our first bug is a rainbow trout, who has come from New Zealand and wants to return to Alaska. We'll take him past some nice trout streams as we set him on his way!

Our next location was in Warrandyte. We'd planned on our first geocaching adventure to look at caches in our local area, of which surpisingly there are quire a few. Our second hunt was also successful, and also showed us some nice walking tracks along the Yarra River we'd not known about.

Our 3rd cache was also in Warrandyte, and was another multicache like the first, requiring the visit to a number of locations to gather the clues to the final cache. Not only did we find the cache, but we also spotted a koala in a nearby tree! We were finding as much wildlife as caches today.

We continued downstream of the Yarra, finding another cache in a location we had passed over a number of times, completely unaware of the "treasure" hidden beneath.

We'd had som much fun, that we went looking for some more on Sunday, even managing to drag Mum along as well. Wouldn't you know though, the first one that Michelle comes on proves impossible to find. We spent ages looking around at ground zero, but eventually had to give up. The Park location was fantastic though, and we will return here for a BBQ.

One of the greatest finds though was our last cache for the day; hidden in the original cemetary in Heidelberg. We had no ideas that this 1/4 acre burial plot was hidden in among the houses.

We returned to our failed cache attempt again, but even though we determined we'd misinterpreted one of the clues we still came up empty handed. We returned to a cache we'd been to earlier to pick up another travel bug, Myrtle the Dancing Turtle and then did one more cache on our travels back home.

Mallee and the Border Track

We had an early morning walk to The Lookout, which was an enjoyable walk through the desert. I spotted a large kangaroo on the way back to the campground and we also spotted some emu tracks in the sand.

We had bacon and eggs again for breakfast, well at least I did, I think the kids had cereal. It was just before 10:00AM and we were packed up and heading off down Centre Track. We had changed our original plan to drive along Border Track based on the advice Peter had received. I was sure it was most likely OK, but I didn't fancy being stuck on my own in the sand if the worst happened, nor did I fancy my chances of being able to find a decent tree to be able to winch off. Even though we later found out the track would have been fine, I really enjoyed driving along Centre Track, which had great views as the track seemed to endless pass into the horizon as we climbed the top of each successive sand dune.

We stopped off at Nanam Well along the way, a 58 metre deep well which was used to water 61,000 sheep which were grazed here in the 1870's

We joined back up with the Border Track, travelling up and down a number of dunes. I checked the roofrack a number of times as I could hear some noises, suspecting that something had come loose but found everything tied down securly. It was a few minutes later that I was to have the whole roofrack slip forward and come off, scratching and denting the top of the car, and causing nearly $4,000 worth of damage. It wasn't much fun removing everything and refitting the roofrack again in the heat and persistant flies either, but it wasn't able to put a damper on such a great trip.

We spotted a goanna as we got back onto the track, and Peter and his daughter passed us as well, generously offering to help out and letting us know they met up with a convoy who had done the Border Track without any problems.

We stopped in at Red Bluff campground, intending to have lunch. We weren't really hungry at all, so we had a quick look at the Bluff, said our farewells to Peter and Melissa and started on our homeward journey. The last portion of the Border Track before Blue Hills Road was very rutted, with numerous BogHoles but we were always able to find a bypass track. I hopped out of the car to inspect the first rutted area to find a way through but gave up on the rutted track ahead, due to the soft sandy subsurface, which would very likely have resulted in the car slipping into the deep embankment, which a previous car had already done judging by the blue paint on the embankment wall!

We eventually left the Border Track, pumping up the tyres and heading into Nhill to refuel, only to find the Shell Service Station closed! So we continued to Dimboola to fill up on diesel as well as dinner before our long trip back down the Western Highway to home.

Mallee and the Border Track

We packed up camp early and were in the car driving across the island by 8:00am. I had wanted to visit Kulkurna Cliffs, but according to the map it was about a 20km trip and we would have to come back the same 20km, so we left them for another time. We passed a few kangaroos along the track, including one with a very cute joey.

We started off our trip down the border at Border Fence Road, which we missed to start with as the border to South Australia was unmarked. Curses not having my laptop! Next time we travel along here we'll start right from the top near Border Cliffs, and do the full border navigation, as we had to divert from the Border Track further along, as detailed below.

The track surface had changed from the slate grey of Lindsay Island to a desert red/orange as we headed south along the border. We pulled off near a tree to cook up some breakfast; the kids were starting to get sick of bacon and eggs. Well, James doesn't even like eggs, but I guess a few days of bacon sandwiches does get boring, though we did have porridge with honey one morning.

As we continued south, the track surface changed from the dark orange, almost red to soft yellow sands.

You could really appreciate the powers of irrigation and how much the farmers had changed the land with the native vegetation and desert on the east of the track, and the cleared green pastures on the west of the track.

We diverted from the Border Track near Berrook, and headed east along Sunset Track to visit the Underbool Green Opal Mine site. We had a little trouble finding it at first; damn that laptop again, but after 20 minutes exploring the desert in the heat and flies we returned to the car and headed back along the track, this time spotting the correct turnoff.

With shovel in hand we set off for the walk across the desert to the mine site, battling the flies which were swarming in their thousands. After a couple of kilometres, the mullock heap was visible across the dunes, and it wasn't long before we arrived at the mine site, the shaft collapsed but visible. We spent some time here looking around for opals, finding some interesting rocks with the green colouration, but no real opals to speak of. Still, it was interesting and worth at least one visit.

We continued down Underbool Track and Sunset Road to the highway, which we followed into Murrayville, to stock up on ice and drinks. The kids had earlier asked about seeing camels in the desert, so I explained to them they may spot them in the Simpson, but not around this area, only to see a camel in a paddock on the edge of town!

We rewarded our hot desert walk with an icecream each, and picked up a 24 pack of Pepsi Max for $23, normally $10 at Safeway in the City! and joined up with the Border Track again. The track was getting really sandy and soft as we joined the Border Track proper.

We visited Scorpion Springs where the kids dug down through the sand looking for water. They wanted to stay here for ages, but we had to think about getting to the campsite at Pine Hut Soak, which we did at about 5:00PM. There was another car setting up camp here at the campgropund, and after chatting found out it was the same car we had passed on the banks of the Murray at Ned's Corner. Peter was travelling through the Big Desert area with his daughter Melissa, and they had planned to travel the entire Border Track, but had heard in Murrayville that the section near Scorpion Springs was impassable after rains, which we had experienced a little of.

We had a simple dinner tonight of Hot Dogs and bread, followed by pancakes for desert, then shared the campfire with Peter and Melissa.

Mallee and the Border Track

I planned to have a lazy day today with little or no driving. I thought the kids would like to just hang around and avoid sitting in the car, but they were soon bored and wanted to explore a bit. They didn't like the beach here so much, as the sand was quite muddy and silty beneath the top layer, and the river was quite deep so they couldn't go out more than a metre from the bank, so we fed the left over breakfast to the Butcherbirds and thought about what to do today.

After breakfast we jumped in the car and headed down to the Mouth of the Mullaroo, managing to back track and make all the right turns without the laptop, but finding our path thwarted by a collapsed bridge.

We headed back to camp, and spent the day there, going on a short walk hunting down a bird we could hear calling and just relaxing at the campsite reading and enjoying the location and nature. There was a Black Kite nest across the river, and the two kites constantly soarded over the river and our campsite, on one occasion diving down and grabbing some leftovers from the Butcher Bird family who we had befriended.

We spotted quite a few birds here: a Pied Butcherbird and young, Black Kites, Pelicans, Regent Parrots and Mulga Parrots as well as Blue Faced Honeyeaters.