The Journey has begun!

[Fozzy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fozzy]

The SE QLD contingent met in Beaudesert this morning and after the obligitory photoshoot, set off south, ultimate destination, Riverwood Downs, the deal being to stay off the blacktop as far as possible on the way.

The first days travel saw them undertake the trip to the first nights stop at Alice via the Lions Rd, Richmond Range National Park and the Cambridge Plateau Forest Drive.

Apart from the Lions Rd, the rest are signed "dry weather only" and although muddy in parts, was an easy traverse.

Following some advice from a NPWS Ranger we met at the Border Loop lookout, those with camper trailers took the hardtop for the final section via the Bruxner Highway whilst the remainder attempted to push through via Cherry Rd, which apparently might be clogged with Lantana. My wife & I left the group at the Bruxner Highway intersection with Cambridge Plateau, so I can't say if a U-turn was needed on Cherry Rd.

The group at Beaudesert, quite a sight. Gordon (D4D-GXL) spent the time waiting for everyone to assemble doing some last minute electrical wiring. The rest of us spent the day trying to spot smoke coming from under the bonnet.


Richmond Range, spectacular drop-offs, rainforest.


Cambridge Plateau, more open countryside


Have fun!

[matt150 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close matt150]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Well done.

Nice to see you all in the spirit

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Re: The Journey has begun!

thats a nice convoy, hope you have a ball, safe trip and looking foward to giving you crap about being canetoad. cheers samo

[Hutch Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hutch]

Re: The Journey has begun!

B@ztards!! Lol, wishing I was with u guys!!!

[Rogerthatv2 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Rogerthatv2]

Re: The Journey has begun!

B@ztards!! Lol, wishing I was with u guys!!!

Same here, After showing the wife this I was given full permission to attend next years GTG! Have a great, safe trip guys and gals and post lots of pics!

[Schaffer Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schaffer]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Nice work guys. Have a good trip. Was every truck carrying MaxTracks. I can see at least half of them with them on the roof.

[ntp Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close ntp]

Re: The Journey has begun!

B@ztards!! Lol, wishing I was with u guys!!!

Same here, After showing the wife this I was given full permission to attend next years GTG! Have a great, safe trip guys and gals and post lots of pics!

There's no doubt a few of us in this boat... 2011 it'll have to be.

So, so jealous of all those attending the GTG. If the 2009 experience was anything to go by, you guys/gals are in for a great time together. Looking forward to seeing some pics and hearing of the stories too. 8)

[Fozzy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fozzy]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Schaffer, for mine, carrying the Maxtrax is one of those insurance policies, great to have WHEN you need it.

I did learn one thing from our brief trip with them yesterday - wash the mud off underneath BEFORE it dries. Just spent 3 hours scraping and gurneying the wheel arches trying to get 20 kg's of Northern NSW mud from underneath. The other vehicles will be the same and given the stuff set like concrete, will be all the harder to shift when they get around to it.

Matt (LFar) is carrying a SPOT personal tracker, which makes it great to check on the group progress, they're just about to hit the Gwydir Highway:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face ... LhkVSGHTTg

Cheers,

Dave

[Lacey Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lacey]

Re: The Journey has begun!

What a great group!! Can't wait until Thursday

Drive safely and enjoy your trip just getting here, see you all soon

Lacey

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Hi All,

We arrived in Brissy about 5 pm tonight. We came pretty close to the Qld team today when we stopped in Armidale for a bit. Looking forward to meeting you all on Thursday we also have our spot up and tracking us, here is our tracking page

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face ... igP0l0pSQE

[Callo Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Callo]

Re: The Journey has begun!

No pics as yet but what a great trip. All six of us have reminded each other often along the lines of .... it doesn't get better than this and then it does. We have done 550 k and estimate 480k on dirt. Spectacular views down the Great dividing range, camping beside wild rivers (Clarence, Nymboida, Styx, Dyke anmd the Mann, and now on the Macleay river at Bellbrook.
Stewy has had fun with a friendly cow. D4D-GXL had to use a shovel handle to get a snake out of his wheel, Richo has been gassiong wife after chillie concarne, LFaR has had 3 U turns and during one of those U turns needed 4 Maxtrax to get out of a bog, Bobsled has discovered his Prado does not have a thermo fan and has not had one since new and his Dune coloured Prado has a Dune coloured dusty spare wheel, and I have had to salute everyone as I hold open the many gates we go through.
A full report will be made later. I am currently in the Bellbrook Tennis Club shelter shed looking out for my fellow PP members after they have returned from the pub and are now plotting tomorrows route. I am very afraid but having a ball.
Callo

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Re: The Journey has begun!

enjoy your trip callo, thanks for the update. cheers samo

[stewy Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close stewy]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Queenslander’s SEQ Trip down to GTG,

Well this morning I had to leave the crew and head back to Brissy.

It didn’t take too long as it was just over a 6hr drive back via the Pacific Hwy.

Here are few more pics from Fozzy’s last post,....from when he left us on Saturday arvo.


After leaving Fozzy, we continued down to Alice NSW to get to Campsite 1 along the Clarence River.

Here are some pics on the way down of the scenery.




It was a little muddy at times, but the weather was quite good.




We pulled up momentarily as Gordo – D4D-GXL came across a snake in the middle of the road.
He got out and attempted to remove it with his shovel.
We think it was a carpet python ?????????

This pic and bit of video show’s how he got his new nickname – “the snake whisperer”

YouTube link to “Gordo – The Snake Whisperer”




We camped Saturday night right beside the Clarence River.






We awoke early on Sunday and decided to have a play on a small dune nearby, but this track was up hill and all River Sand. Gordo struggled a little with the camper in toe.

YouTube link to Gordo’s RiverSand driving up Hill with Camper Trailer in Toe





We left Camp early on Sunday and headed for the Mann River.





We stopped beside the Mann River and had lunch.




Callo couldn’t help himself and decided to try and feed a cow some milk.

After this experience the cow came after me and stole my loaf of bread.





On Sunday Arvo after a long days driv’n, we finally got to the Nymboida River and setup camp for the night. The water was refreshing as most of us had a smim to wash off.







On Monday the 27th it was time to head off. We covered approx 230klms this day and around 90% on dirt. The terrain had creek crossings, bush, jungle and high speed dirt roads.







We stopped beside a creek for lunch and to grab a quick bite to eat and to let the diffs cool down. The creek crossing was fairly shallow here, but at the time we all had a bit of fun crossing it.

YouTube link to Callo & Gordo’s Creek Crossing



Early afternoon we stopped here to take a look at a church, only to get our bearings and before we hit the road for some high speed dirt running.









On our way to BellBrook we did some rally driv’n through the forests on some narrow dirt roads reaching speeds of up to an over 100klms which was a lot of fun but required concentration

I later took some video of the long dusty road coming into the town of Bellbrook

YouTube Link to Dusty Driv’n into Bellbrook NSW


We stopped here at Bellbrook for a quick beer before setting up camp for the night.



The camping in town was O.k. for the night as we were right in town next to the tennis court.
Here we were able to plug the laptops into free power and charge them up so that we could run our GPS mapping software to load up some routes for the days ahead.


In the morning we all packed up early and hit the road by 8:30am

We had one more group photo at the pub, then said our goodbyes as I was heading home and the crew were making there way to Glaucester.

See ya, Callo, LFaR, D4D-GXL, Richoson and Bobsled.

Have fun at the 2010GTG

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Re: The Journey has begun!

great trip report so far fellas, thats a top vid of gordo carvin up the sand, i hope he goes better at stocko without the trailer in tow, if not there will be plenty of video to follow. cheers samo

[Fozzy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fozzy]

Re: The Journey has begun!

Fantastic report Stewy!

I hope everyone keeps a copy of the GPS trip log (Matt has a Garmin doesn't he?), I'm certainly keen to do a couple of sections in the future.

Dave