EXCEED MAY 2017 May_Emag | Page 13

TRIP REPORT
Episode 4 John Jansen 326
Previously, on The Odyssey:
A bogged Prado with a very peeved wife on board,
Adventurers sliding down hills forwards,
Adventurers sliding down hills backwards,
350+ steps all the way down to the ocean
350+ steps all the way back up again,
Many stops to air-down followed by an equal number of stops to air-up,
A great mob of big kangaroos,
The magnificent Old Coach Road (two sections),
The glorious roar of the Southern Ocean and the coastline vistas.
Lord Soul called the Band of Adventurers together for the pre-dawn briefing. Well it was actually 10.00pm and we had
just got back from the pub, but pre-dawn sounds more exciting. We were ready for another day of adventure.
Lord Soul then announced that he would no longer be leading and that SuperMario had plotted a cunning route back
to the Great Suburbia and would lead the Band of Adventurers for the final day. Lord Soul would become a Charlie
and make sure none of us tried to cut and run. More alarming was the fact that your correspondent would be required
to move from the comforts of Lord Soul’s Truck to the more cramped confines of SuperMario’s Rocket in order to read
the Navigation Machine and ensure that the power cord stayed connected. My hopes for a gentle ride together with
a snooze or two on the way back to the great suburbia were dashed! I spent the night dreaming of trying to snooze
in SuperMario’s Rocket with its wonderful throaty exhaust note and gee-whiz suspension whilst zooming along the
muddy tracks of the Otways.
The day dawned overcast with light drizzle and we were required to wait while Charlie fuelled up on coffee. It took us
15 minutes of relatively sedate driving on the blacktop to get to our first plotted track – The Boulevarde. Things were
looking up – maybe I could get a snooze in. Pretty soon I realised this was the Boulevarde of Broken Dreams as we
tracked along increasingly muddy tracks that appeared to be part of a dairy farm until we got to a point where there
were clearly more cows than road. The Navigation Machine said we were fine – a genuine gazetted road with fences on
either side. I’m sure there is a High Court judgement in our favour on this one. Nevertheless an irate dairy farmer was
now haranguing our Charlie. Superb diplomacy from Lord Soul ensured we had permission to continue.
A short stretch northward on the Gellibrand River Road alongside farmland saw us double back southward into
another section of t he Great Otway National Park towards the Grasstree Plain. More cunning work from SuperMario.
Southward on the Colac Tree road we went, along Skinners Track followed by a brief section of the Cobden road.
Good tracks with both sandy and clay sections. The bush changes rapidly with the change in soil type along these
tracks.
We then turned onto Junction Track, heading east. There is a fair bit of clay on this track and the rain had ensured that
it would be an interesting drive requiring a watchful but aggressive driving technique. Our Band of Adventurers was
up to the task. Mr Jeep O’Leary was going beautifully behind SuperMario, and Mr 200 Henchman was throwing the
Big Toy around with aplomb! Charlie was cruising along in his new (but old) Neesan Paytrol Yute. The O’Leary Jeep
it must be said is truly a beautiful machine. Nice size, very, very comfortable with every driver aid known to man and
woman. A massage function would be a nice addition. However the electronics can nag you more than your mother-
in-law and it said things to Mr O’Leary that would keep the lawyers busy and the mechanics working overtime. Old-
fashioned techniques such as driving through the brakes don’t sit well with the automotive programmers of today.
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Vol 34 No. 4 -May 2017