Anglesea/Paddy's Swamp Sat July 19 Leaving 0730

[gwagensteve]

*Sniff* I'm out. My 45769037596034736th water pump seal has just let go so I'm going to be spending any spare time between now and then trying to get my car ready for the snow.

Sorry - after all my hassling I was itching to get on this.

Steve.

[Matthew]

Fun was had, but boy was it muddy, whoever said there was nothing that hard in the area needs to go back.
The trip standard was hard, even after they they decided to take us on the easier tracks, actually it would have only been medium on the easier tracks except for all the rain and I got paranoid that I was going to brake my car. Should really have had sierras with 31's and at least 1 locker. The geelong boys had 5 or 6 sierras on this trip, all with 31's except for one guy who was on 30's. I think they may have more sierra in their club than we do, in total they have 12.

Ross and Daryl were both struggling with ground clearance and had to be snatched a number of times. I could just clear the majority of the ruts but was struggling with open diffs.
The first obstacle should have been a giveaway of how hard the day would be, both Ross and Daryl had to be dragged through and I only just made it.
Ross had to leave early after drowning the feroza's alternator in one of the numerous bog holes. Daryl cracked his extractors after knocking his exhaust off and I ended up with 2 front bead leaks, had to inflate 1 tyre 4 or 5 times. Luckily one of the guys had a great on board air setup and kept me going.
Daryl had to leave the Vit on the side of the road due to the lack of ground clearance, and not long after I decided that I was out of my depth and decided that I would need to leave as it was just too punishing on my car and there were no spare seats. Unfortunately due to the lack of spare seats Daryl and Marty had to leave too. Aaron (over land 4x4) left with us as he had to sell some parts.

This trip was enjoyable up to a point, but the fun dissipates when you need to be snatched through every second obstacle, the biggest problem with this area is the lack of chicken tracks, you have no choice but to tackle the obstacle head on.
This area would be great for a hard+ trip, and if we are interested the geelong guys said they'd be more than happy to take us out again, providing we bring appropriately equipped vehicles.


Matt

[billbarbas]

Great report, is it a big area to cover and are the tracks marked at all?

[christover1]

Lucky Frog was broken, cos if I'd come, I may have embarrassed myself

Sounds like fun, and it does appear that tracks have improved (got harder).

If it was dry, would it still rate hard?

christover

[Matthew]

Great report, is it a big area to cover and are the tracks marked at all?

It is a pretty big area, and some tracks are marked, not sure if all are though, I didn't take as much notice as i should have, was stressing about breaking my car. One of the best things is there are no track closures in the area.

The geelong guys are a pretty good group, they said they'd be more than happy to take us out again, but we need to let them know in advance what kind of vehicles we will have so they can tailor a trip to suit, they were originally going to split us up into 2 groups, but then only 3 of our cars showed up.

[Matthew]

Lucky Frog was broken, cos if I'd come, I may have embarrassed myself

Sounds like fun, and it does appear that tracks have improved (got harder).

If it was dry, would it still rate hard?

christover

It would probably be easy-medium in the dry, but the geelong guys were saying it stays pretty wet in some of the areas.If we want hard tracks they have some insane stuff in the area, you just need to know where to look.

[Phantomzook]

Had a ride with Nigel who had 3 inch (spring shackle) lift 31 mongrel’s rockhopers twin locked 20 yrs as a driving instructor and mechanic.
The tracks we did they rated easy it was simply our ground clearance that stopped us.
Nigel said that the 12 zooks in the club were more of a faction of the Geelong club and were a little annoyed with the politics of theirs. I mentioned them joining up with us to which I was surprised that he had already considered and were open to it. In the future and a little more communication they could run a range of trips from easy beginners to Adventure tour standard.
Some tracks were posted but the last track we were on was local knowledge only stuff not on maps or in any books.
He was very keen to see us again especially gwagonsteve and the famous frog of which they all seemed to know of.
They are also very knowledgeable of the Otway area and could show us extreme stuff there also.
First impressions were good they take pride in their area noting a new car wreck we found to be picked up on their next clean up day and mentioned previous trips with other clubs they had done.

[Phantomzook]

Carnage report left out Martin's Camera he tried to break his fall in the mud with.

[christover1]

I've been on some Otway trips that are pretty good, but was long ago and things change.

The Geelong zookers were in constant contact with me, while they set up the club.
And they are frequenters of outers too.

[mightymouse]

I'm still trying to decide if I enjoyed myself...... idle problems, stuffed alternator, very WRONG tyres and bogholes that were deep.

If you don't like bog holes and mud then the areas not for you, but with appropriately spec'ed vehicles a really good time could be had.
Quite different from our usual country - not much of the rocky technical stuff, just MUD and slippery clay, sort of reminds me of Cockpit and Blowhard when really chopped up.

We must return to the area soon, BUT if the Geelong boys are to be believed it definitely should be rated HARD, but a bit hard to tell if they were making a "statement" or the areas all that tough !
They also aren't afraid to drive their stuff hard - harder than I'm prepared to do anyway Lots of bashed around vehicles.

Now to try and fix the @#$% Alternator.