SEQUAL TO SUZIES TO THE CAPE, SUZIES TO THE SOUTH

[fuzzychops]

SUZUKIS TO TASMANIA 2018 – (SEQUAL TO CAPE YORK 2017)

After a successful trip to the Northern tip of Australia in 2017, the Bairnsdale crew decided to travel to the Southern most accessible tip, near Cockle Bay in Tasmania. The group consisted of David and Libby Raeburn driving their forty year old restored Suzuki LJ80 with his son Steve and wife Ruth driving a 1992 wide track Suzuki Sierra and support vehicle Nissan Patrol driven by Brad Toohey. All were present on the trip to the cape. Steve and Ruths young daughter, Jordan, travelled with Brad as the Suzukis only seat two people. The group left Bairnsdale on the19th of February to catch the Spirit of Tasmania. Departure was delayed by an hour due to rough weather, the ferry had to be towed off the wharf by tug boats. The crossing was rough but we all managed to get some sleep. On arrival in Tasmania, we had decided to go to the West Coast to drive some of the harder tracks. First stop was at Sheffield to look at some of the wonderful murals on the buildings. Steve had his wheel alignment checked as his Suzi was wandering on the road. From their we continued to Waratah and visited Philosophers Falls then on to Mt Magnate mine ruins. This had been a huge operation in its day, but most of the equipment had been burnt or bulldozed into the creek, but there are lots of bottles, artefacts and pieces of machinery lying around.
We made camp where the workers huts were originally. Next morning we tried travelling further down the tramway track from the mine, but it was badly washed out and overgrown, Brad had issues getting under the trees and Steve became badly bogged and had to be winched out, so we decided that discretion was better than valour and continued on our way. We crossed the Pieman River on the Fatman Barge at a cost of $25 per vehicle and continued on to Granville Harbour – a small fishing village. Climies Track starts not far from here, this track has a reputation of being very hard and certainly lived up to it. It is very washed out and rough rocky crossings, severe off angles and many steep rocky climbs and descents. It also has deep sand and big ruts.
All in all, great fun with great scenery along the way. We finished the track and camped on a side track near Zeehan. The next morning, Brad and Steve headed off to try out the Lake Cumberland Track, but it proved to be too difficult, even in the Nissan and they ran out of time. We travelled into Zeehan then attempted the trip via Ring River Road to Montezuma Falls, but had to turn back as the track was really boggy and a Land Rover Discovery had been rolled over due to the steep side angles these are really dangerous in the little Suzies we rolled one on the last trip.
So we opted for the Old Tramway Track to the falls. This proved to be a great challenging trip with deep water crossings, slippery off angles, one so steep that I had to put my hand on the cliff on the drivers side to keep drive on the uphill wheels. The track goes right to the falls, which are the highest in Tassie there is a suspension bridge across the valley allowing viewing of the falls.
Next morning it started to rain, so we had a quick pack up of camp and headed for Strahan. On the way we took a small detour to the Henty Dunes for a bit of sand driving, it is a huge area and lots of fun driving on the big dunes.
The rain continued all the way to Strahan so we booked a cabin for the night. It rained heavily all night and continued into the next day. With the rain still falling, we drove onto the beach and all the way south to the lighthouse at Hells Gate, then into Strahan, refuelled and headed to Queenstown, there were waterfalls all along the road the rain eased by the time we reached the Derwent River Bridge, we stopped for lunch at the pub. TheLJ80 had developed a serious vibration, on inspection we found the rear universal had fallen to pieces, so we removed the rear tail shaft and drove to New Norfolk in front wheel drive. Sunday – a R&R day and service day on the vehicles. Monday, Brad and Steve went to Hobart and had the LJ80 universals replaced, when they returned, we refitted the tail shaft, camp was packed up and we headed to Hobart. The vibration returned, on inspection we found that they had fitted a universal that was too narrow . We returned to the repair shop and they fitted the correct one. We then headed to Catamaran and Cockle Creek, the furtherest point south, accesable in Australia. We camped near the track and next morning we walked to the huge bronze Whale Sculpture which was built to commemorate the whaling history of the area.
We stopped at the Ida Bay cemetery and marvelled at the courage of the pioneers settling in such a harsh and remote place and carving a life out for themselves and their families. We returned from there to Geeveston, Brad, Steve, Ruth and Jordan did the fantastic Tahune air walk through the giant tree tops. We had trouble finding a camp site so close to Hobart, eventually camping at the Cygnet Camp ground. We left early the next morning and drove to Kettering to catch the ferry to Bruny Island, the crossing is fairly short - approx half hour. The Northern part of the island is fairly dry, very little green grass, the roads are well maintained with lots of tourists around.
The trip to the south gets greener as you go, becoming dense rain forest, but most of it has been logged and is covered in mainly wattle regrowth. Steve took a rough, boggy side track and found a couple of Huon Pine trees that had survived the destruction. At Cloudy Bay on the southern end of the Island, we drove on the beach for about four kilometres and turned left up the dunes to a nice camp site. There were a few camps but plenty of room, it rained most of the evening and into the night. The next morning we travelled back to the ferry. After another uneventful crossing, we headed back to Hobart, Brad had a collapsed ball joint on the end of the front panhard rod which was causing the Patrol to wander on the road, he went to Pedders Suspension and had it repaired. Davids ute was vibrating again and so it was returned for repair on inspection it was decided that one of the circlips had not been fitted correctly and had fallen out it was repaired again with many apologies . This fixed and Brad back on the road, we headed to Richmond to look at the wonderful bridge and feed the ducks,
then on back roads towards the east coast, passed 'Stonehenge', an historic two storey stone house. We camped the night at Toomes Lake on the Diamond Tiers range, a really nice camp with very few other campers. Next morning we took a rough and rocky back track to Bicheno, then St Marys and on to Fingal. We camped on the Esk River at the Griffin Camp ground, a great camp right on the river. We had stayed there before and knew there would be lots of little spotted quolls there. We had saved some food scraps for them, they arrived on dark and were all around our camp and during the night they even raided the wasp traps, eating the European wasps and the rissole meat bait in the traps.
Next morning, we packed up camp and drove to Jacobs Ladder on Mount Ben Lomond, this road travels through some spectacular country including one of the largest Dolerite scree falls in the world. The road is easy, a spectacular and scenic drive as it winds up to the ski village on the top.
From there we went to Launceston and Devonport via back roads to meet the ferry for the journey home. It was a wonderful and challenging trip, with family and friends. In the Suzukis, with Brad as back up, we completed our trip from the Northern most tip of Australia to the Southern most point. We are looking forward to our next adventure already.
Author David Raeburn
THIS STORY AND PICTURES ARE ALSO ON 4X4EARTH.COM.AU UNDER TRIP REPORTS

[Mike57]

Hi David

Hope you are well. Do you know when the video will be on YouTube or otherwise generally available?

We are still interested in having you attend one of our meetings.

Mike

[fuzzychops]

Hi Mike and other members I now have the fully edited version of Suzies to the Cape I can not make it to the next meeting but will try for the next one.I will let you know when I can make it I will bring the film with me, looking foward to meeting the other members and maybe planning a trip down this way or to our property in the Pyranees .

David Raeburn.

[Mike57]

Hi David

It would be great to get you to a meeting even with some pics on a laptop. We have a projector to display what is on the laptop. It would also be great to plan a joint trip this summer in the high country (or anywhere you like really)..

Mike

[fuzzychops]

Hi Mike can you show a dvd on your equipment at the meeting the tv version goes about one hour.

David.

[Mike57]

Hi David

Yes we can arrange to show a DVD. We can just play it from a laptop. That won't be a problem. The full hour might be too long because we want to allow for questions but what we might do is show sections of the video (maybe 20 minutes) and then do a Q&A. You can tell us which sections of the video are the most informative and we just skip to those sections.

All you need to do is tell us when you can make it. We meet on the second Wednesday of each month in Glenn Iris.

Mike

[fuzzychops]

Hi Mike I hoped to make it to the July meeting but I will be in South Australia until the end of July, I hope to make the August meeting but will advise when I am certain.
David Raeburn.