Melbourne Cup Weekend Trip 3 - Zook Club Cup

[cj!]

Yes, on that famous day in November the Cup will be won by somebody. Will it be you? Get your junk ready a big day out. Fascinators optional.

Tuesday 6th November
Location: Mt Disappointment
Standard: Medium / Hard
Meeting: Whittlesea - Church St 930am.
Contact: Greg 0405 321 916
More details to come.

[cj!]

An update from Greg.

Zook Club Cup
Tuesday 6 November
Meeting Point - 9:30am (departing time)
Cnr Church St and Walnut Street Whittlesea (main shopping district - coffee, fuel, food etc)
General Plan - cruise out to Mt Disappointment, air down and drive into the forest to see which tracks are available for driving etc... Hopefully the firebreak works will have been completed by now and we will be able to get a good day of nice technical driving in without running into too many track closures. We should be able to get onto all the tracks we drove in the first day of this year's adventure tour. Estimated time of completion should be somewhere between 3 and 5pm (after all - it is a school night).
Standard - medium.
Note: I won't be enforcing the collar and tie dress code, but i think "no shoes no service" will still be applicable.
Please let me know if you are attending.
p.s. camping trips suck!

[sierrajim]

From what i've heard (my other 1/2 rides her horse up there often) there have been more closures at Dissa.

Very messy closures as well, holes dug for some distance from the beginning of a track and trees dropped across the holes just to be sure.

[jtraf]

We were up there on the weekend having a look around and lots of tracks have been closed off....

Not a lot to drive but tracks are still closed............Looking at joining on the day with the Patrol if all goes to plan

[gwagensteve]

Can we have a roll call for this trip? It's currently only Greg and Myself (with Mock) and we'd like to confirm numbers, mostly because we might not be heading to dissapointment due to closures.

[christover1]

I doubt I'd come if we go to Dissa. To me it's not worth it.
If the trip moves location, I am interested.
May be moving the ladies furniture, yet, so can't make a firm commitment.

christover

[jtraf]

I am in depending on where you go.......

[gwagensteve]

Note everyone, there is a change of venue for this trip, we'll be going to Warburton/Yarra State forest.

Meeting at a casual 0930 in the Yarra Junction supermarket carpark (That's behind the main shopping strip.) As you drive though Yarra Junction, turn right towards powelltown/noojee at the traffic lights and then right into the carpark.

So far we have Greg, Myself and the Jimny confirmed.

Standard will be medium and maybe some stuff a a little harder.

PLEASE CALL GREG TO CONFIRM he isn't on here 0405 321 916

Steve.

[gwagensteve]

Well, all up we had a corker of a day, but we didn't really do much - there you go.

Here's the cast:
Sorry for the forgotten/incorrect names.
Greg - The Black Car
Mitch - Glass Jimny
Michael & Friend - WT
Lloyd & Marty - High Roof
Chris and Andrea - Frog
Steve & Mock - Piggles
Discovery Man - Discovery
Sam - Blue Betty

So the plan was to look at some of the Yarra State Forest's highlights. It was years since some of us had tried to climb the top 1/2 of Justice, and others hadn't done it at all, so we set off up cemetary and across onto justice.

Justice is pretty challenging. There was a decent little bog hole (Piggles 1, The Black Car 0, Discovery - Winch)then the climb started in earnest. It's a pretty typical Yarra state forest track, meaning that odd mix of granitic sand mixed in with red clay, and a one big rut that chops across the track from side to side. I was struggling in Piggles with the side of the car jamming against the bank, and "tuned" the panelwork on the driver's side to match the passengers.

heading up to the last big climb, I was really struggling with the car jamming against the bank, and I was getting on it a bit to tray and clear the section... and BANG! - rear axle. 660cc of angry squirrel and 34" swampers are more than a match for the stock shafts.

Discovery man decided to retreat at this stage, I backed piggles off the hill and we commenced the repair. Basically, we pulled both shafts, the centre, pulled the centre apart to get the broken axle bit out, and put it all back together. Took about 5 minutes (and three hours) to do Big ups to everyone who helped out - thanks guys!turned out the longside axle was twisted too (but not broken) so we changed that too.

After that, I got up the hill pretty easy.

We cruised back down cemetary and checked out a little track that lead back towards wesburn, well known for its moguls. This bit claimed the next victim - Mitch's glass jimny. - Longside CV, followed by the rear ring and pinion! At that point we decided to call it a day as it was 5.00pm, and a school night after all.

I don't think anyone else had any memorable problems.

Ely Creek, ellis Britannia etc all remain for another day

Steve.
I have some of Mock's photo's of the day I'll try to get them up tonight.

[muppet_man67]

Thanks Greg. for running a very informative tech day with some driving thrown in pics