Nice little easy day out in what is fast becoming my home away from home. Met up with the crew and had a quick yarn about the plan and then headed straight in via Davis Rd. Aired down and crossed the creek which was really low this time, sorry for letting you down there Paul about finding you a swimming hole. 

 

Headed across to Jenkins 1 with the radio call of "ok lets have some fun" and up the climb at the start. It's washed out quite a bit since we were last there, much rockier and a bit more fun. Up around the top corner and had to sigh as I drove past the link track - not the day for it. Had someone jump on the radio and say "I'm having fun already". That's what I like to hear. Down to the bottom and over to Stony Creek Tk up to Horans and down Tehans 6, rain was coming down and surface was getting more slippery. Down to the bottom and then up Tehans 5 and I called out to everyone saying up the top at the last climb I'd stop and film everyone coming up the steepish final climb that has some good washouts and ruts. Got up there thinking "hmmm, those ruts are deeper and quite slippery...". Came down to film it and Paul was up next, all good in the 80, but noted he put the front locker in. Eli was next in the Triton and had a solid few cracks but was getting hung up on the ruts on the final washout. Decided to back down and hook him up and with the help of lockers pull us both up. Nope. I was sitting right on the steepest section with Eli on the washout, when I went to take up the slack all I got was wheelspin. Ok, let's find the 2nd way to skin a cat. We backed down so that I was on the next washout down and he was sitting below that with just enough traction to not slide further down. And then it was berries. Lots of berries. With the run up from a flatter section the snatch went taught and threatened to stop me going good further up hill but then the elastic force released its energy and got Eli moving. Foot on the floor, throwing the steering wheel side to side I bounced in and out of the ruts as we gained momentum. Eli was up over the washout I started from and then we faced the next one, the mud tyres working overtime to find traction, steam rising from my bonnet as again my momentum slowed slightly but we had enough that I crept up over it and then picked up speed again, pulling the snatch tight and clearing the Triton over that washout and we were up! Probably the most fun assist I've done, was just awesome experiencing the two vehicles working both with and against each other and nature. 

 

After that the Jason came up in the Ranger and made it through nicely, Dave and Andy in the incredibly capable Jeep, finally Brad and Anthony in the ripper Zook. Question the arose - is that the last of those? My reply was something along the lines of "up to you, that was the easy bit"... hahaha.

 

We then booted down Tehans 4, around and up Tehans 2 and starting to get a bit peckish. Had to stop and do a bit of track build where a log across the track and a pot hole on the outer side threatened some unpleasant side angle with a steep drop off if things went wrong. No problems there. Kept going further and got stopped by some young guys at the turnoff to Willies. They'd gone down forward and seen the climb and tried reversing out but were stuck, needed help. One Navaro, road tyres, no radio, no recovery gear. Mentally shaking my head I pulled them out and then we made our way up and over to the Army Tk camping spot for lunch. It was nearly 2 by this point so I changed my original idea of heading up to West Falls and instead did the quick highway drive down Horans to Rocky, up to the top of Mt Hickey for a photo stop and quick look on foot at the tough section of Phone Tk. Oh, by the way, who was the idiot that thought it would be fun to walk down there? Oops... after nearly having a coronary walking back up we headed down Mountain Tk to Ellis Rd, aired up and called it a day. Just in time for the sun to come out after raining the whole day. Short lived though as once on the Hume it bucketed down and did a decent job of washing some of the mud off. Cheers mother nature!

 

Thanks everyone, I loved it. My dad thoroughly enjoyed his first ever 4wding experience as well. Will post up some footage later but here's the group on top of Mt Hickey.