Vic/SA Border Track

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This is a bit old, it was my first club trip over the June long weekend. Ill post some pics first becasue i know thats what everyone really wants, and give you a bit of a report later. Now that ive said that there isnt alot of action shots or anything, i was solo in the car so it made things difficult, anyway, here goes.....

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oh crap, sorry guys, i havnt posted pics before they are a bit big, ill try to resize them

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Gee, the pics are a bit small arn't they :lol:

Looks like a bit of everything on that trip... look forward to the report.

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Well im back from an excellent long weekend! I met up with the other people from the club on Saturday morning. A couple of land cruiser utes, a pajero, a patrol and a brand new hilux, oh and ofcourse the prado. We had to stop and Nhill and pick up one of the families, from there it was across the border and onto Woolsley to have a quick look at the fuel tanks. They were built in 1941 to hold fuel for planes but were never actually filled. The main train line is only a hundred metres across the road and also the line that branches south to the coast. 6 20 metre in diameter tanks, now just the middle of a paddock, being sown around.
We headed through Keith and turned into the Ngarkatt Conservation Park. Paid our money and noticed alot of spider webs in the sky. If you looked with the sun behind them you could see them going up in the sky for what seemed easily like 40 or 50 metres. Seemed so odd, someone thought it meant rain. We headed on for lunch at Rabbit springs soak. Saw a few ruins of farm houses along the way. After lunch we headed north to get to the northern end of the park to then start coming south along the border track the next day. It was a long drive through on my own in the car. All mainly sandy tracks, pretty well compacted though. Rolling/undulating hills youd call them i suppose. Alot had been burnt out probably 18 months ago, so had regenerated well.
The camp we were aiming for was closed for some reason so we headed out of the park and into another one. It was a rather chilly night that night, despite having a big momma sleeping bag, i think its the good old air bed bringing air up from the ground, and i was waiting for it to start leaking so i could buy a thermarest or something but it just wont bust! I dont know what people do to airbeds becasue they always complain about air leaks but this cheap and nasty one stays up! Next morning i went for a bit of a walk and found a big sand bowl with the fog lifting slowly. I had to admit I was glad it was fenced off because I could just see some 4wd’ers taking to it.
We headed off, fueled up at Lameroo then headed back down into the conservation park. I think a conservation park in SA is similar to a state forest or state park in VIC, maybe someone can enlighten me. We went a little way in and pulled up for lunch at scorpion springs. From there on we followed alongside the border fence. The going wasnt to tough, mainly sand hills that casued the most issue. People had been attempting to go up in two wheel drive, not putting it into 4, a show off thing i can only assume, but this wrecks the track, puts little steps in the track up the hill which makes it really rough. A few big dunes were fun, i made it up all but one, and i could have spat to the top on that one! There was a line up down the bottom so i didnt try again, just went an easier track to the right. One vehicle with us had a camper trailer and had some difficulty with the dunes but any really tough ones had a chicken track around the side. Due to it being the long weekend there were plenty of vehicles that would catch up at the dunes. We had a delay on one and a group or two passed us. We didnt like the chance of getting a camp further on so when we found some trees, pulled up and made camp in the mallee trees. There was a litle bit of drizzle around so there wasnt any crusty white stuff on my tent when i got out in the morning!
we got a bit earlier start on MOnday morning, heading for Red Bluff. Its a little out of place for the area, a big, red, well, bluff! Stands out like dogs balls! The club maintains the campground in conjunction with parks vic. Climbed to the top, had a look, and smoko break then we were off for big mumma, a sand dune. It too had a few people so we couldnt really give the harder tracks a go or try it again. We then headed on to the bog holes where the prado could easily have dissappeared. We saw a few blokes giving some of the holes a go from another group. I was half keen but once again the camper trailer may have struggled so we back tracked and turned off earlier.
From there we had lunch on the side of the road then headed for Nhill then home. It was an excellent trip, not overly difficult, however had there not been the recent rains it may be a different story.