Blackwood trip with Explore WA

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A couple of weeks ago we went on a tagalong trip with Explore WA down to Nannup for the weekend. Nice young fella with lots of local experience as his family have a farm property down there. He's trying to set up a new business venture for himself and I think he will do pretty good.
There were six cars in total. Jed's 80 series, a 4Runner with 33's and a big body lift, two fat bottomed Patrols (one of which had a monster 6.2L engine), a 100 series on dual fuel and our "city car" according to one guy 😀
By the end of the trip he was very surprised by how easy we tackled everything they did. I wasn't 😉
We had to meet in Nannup at 9am which meant we had to leave home very early in the morning as its a 3.5hr drive. 4 if I give my wife dodgy directions and miss a turn and go the long way haha. My fault and I owned up to it. Man that was hard.
Nannup is a bit of a hippy town, very quiet and relaxed atmosphere. I think they were having an old car rally day down there so I got a couple of photos while we could.



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So after that we met up with everyone at the BP and shot off straight into it. They guys in the 100 had their kids with them so that was good for us not being the only ones. My kids love 4wding and getting out of town so come with us all the time.
A couple of k's out of Nannup and we were at the start point to air down a bit and tackle some power line trails to begin with.

Slight detour to check out a good camp site, pinned for future reference 😉



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After that we went and checked out a river crossing. Jee wasn't sure if anyone would want to, but we all did. He went for a wade to check the depth. glad it wasn't me, the water down there is cold.
I think i went in a bit fast and my front right dropped in a hole so had a big splash to begin with but it was easy as, probably mid thigh depth

We weren't meant to go that way on the route he had planned out so unfortunately we had to go back through. Much easier the second time.



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After we all got wet it was back on the tracks and on to the next stop, Jalbarragup Bridge. A good sized day area. Great photo opportunity too.



Quite a few of these little buggers around too



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Blackwood trip with Explore WA

We were making pretty good time so we had a bit of a detour down some side tracks before and after lunch.

He got us all to line up after lunch too

The afternoon seems to go by really quickly and before we knew it we were at the spot Jed had chosen to camp at.


One of the other cars had to move their tent as they put it down right on top of an ants nest. There were hundreds of the little buggers and one of their boys got bitten through his shoe. My kids were running around in thongs so I'm lucky they didn't too.
Edit. Forgot to add, there was some sort of hippie shindig on while we were camped there and they had doof doof music going all night and well into the morning. Guess the mushrooms were good or something.

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That was our first time in the new swags and they are great. We've already used them again this weekend too, and I reckon Poppy would sleep in hers every night if we let her.
Photo for reference, on the floor in our bedroom.

For brekky we went just around the corner to another good day use area maintained by DPaW. It had toilets so there were two reasons to go there. The rear door table came in handy once again.





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After brekky we went back through Nannup then out the other side of town looking for some hill climbs and some mud to play in. Beautiful scenery driving through the pine plantations.


We found a pretty good hill climb to try and everyone wanted to give it a go. Expect my family haha, so they all jumped out while I went up.
As usual the photos don't look any where near as steep as in real life.
The view from the top.

I got a big dent in my rear tank bash plate going up the hill, which I still need to get out, so I just went down the track to the bottom to watch the others coming back down the hill.


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Then it was more driving through the the plantations in search of some more fun.

Lots of good power line tracks down there, much better maintained that the one in Mundaring.

Glad I had the sock on the snorkel too, which is now wrecked from a trip this weekend unfortunately.



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All of a sudden it was lunch time and all over, or so we thought...
Most of the other cars decided to leave, but we chose to follow Jed down some new tracks he wanted to explore as we weren't in a hurry to get home.
We found some mud not long after and decided to have a go at it.
Where Jed went through looked easy as so I thought I would go on the left instead. Big mistake haha I got stuck, and when he came back around to laugh at me and my new mud tyres he got stuck too lol

After this it was lucky that one of the other cars had taken a wrong turn and drove back past. They had a laugh at us and came on down to help us out. They snatched Jed out but as I was sitting there for a while, my car had suctioned down and wasn't going anywhere. Luckily they both had winches so Jed used his on me while the other car was used as an anchor on top of the hill.

After this we all decided to remove our brains and have a few more goes through it as we were having fun. Yes, I got stuck again



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Another winch out and I had convinced my wife that we really did need the winch I had bought and is now sitting at home waiting to go on 😉
Then the 100 got stuck where I did and he had to winch himself out haha
He thought he could get through where I couldn't as my car is only a Prado 😝
This is a great shot my wife took of when we first got stuck


When Jason got himself out we had decided we had all had enough and aired up and went back into town before the long drive home.

I completely forgot about the car wash at the BP and just washed off some of the mud using all the water we had and a tap at the park before we drove home. Just washed the important bits so we could get moving.


Got lots of funny looks on the way home too, but we were all happy as we had a great weekend. By the time we got home most of the mud had dried and this is where my avatar pic is from.



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Had to take the daughter to school like that in the morning too and got lots of funny looks again haha. After which it was time for a wash

Three hours later.... Most of the mud was off

On the driveway. Which took another hour to clean. It's times like these I wish we had lawn.

The car has had another wash since then and I'm still getting mud out of it. I guess it s gonna be a while before its all gone. Or maybe I'll just cover it with some more 😀


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This is the path we took over the course of the two days. If you're interested.





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And these are the stats.

I've also published the trip to the cloud if you want a closer look or to save it and follow the route yourself.
https://cloud.hemaexplorer.com.au/pu...qJB9GCGr0xKiPL


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

All in all we had a great time and would do it again. It's good to get out with others and having someone with local knowledge is always a bonus. Jed is only starting out his business but he's gaining momentum doing sand training courses and getting the name out there.
He's got another trip coming up to go Marroning in January that I'd like to do too.


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

Awesome trip report BlakMoth!

Thanks for sharing.