EXCEED MAY 2017 May_Emag | Page 14

TRIP REPORT
The Navigation Machine was now saying we were in the middle of nowhere. The road had been realigned and no one
had thought to tell the mapping people. Heading down hill we saw a sign that said “Narrow Bridge – No Overtaking
or Passing”. The bridge turned out to be much wider than any part of the track, proving again that people in Parks have
a sense of humour. However the track up the other side took a turn for the worse as seriously deep ruts appeared on
a corner. SuperMario deftly headed right and avoided the ruts, keeping the boot firmly planted to get us up the hill
(superb exhaust note on this bit), only to be stopped by a fallen tree at the top. Your correspondent was on the radio
immediately to warn the rest of our Band of the ruts but was cut short by the appearance of the tree. Somehow I think
I failed to communicate the seriousness of the ruts and the Jeep stuck left and ended up bottomed out across the two
deepest ruts. The electronics weren’t helpful!
Mr 200 soon had him out of the ruts and the Jeep was rolling again, with the electronics having quietened down.
SuperMario by this time had with his trusty Echo chainsaw, single handed cleared a tree that would have made a terrific
totem pole in many cultures. Onward we went, to find another narrow bridge with no passing or overtaking. This was
preceded by more deep ruts which had SuperMario very busy on the steering wheel to straighten the Paj Rocket after
getting out of the ruts. The Jeep had more difficulty, possibly due to tyres and certainly the proximity of the bank next to
the car. We decided to pull out the Max Trax. These had saved us previously and now enabled all of our Band to safely
exit the ruts. Don’t Leave Home Without ‘Em is our motto now.
Morris Track and Hargreaves Track saw us back on the Gellibrand River Road. At this point the Jeep had to cut and run
back to Suburbia. The trio of Adventurers then took a circuitous route from Carlisle River to Gellibrand via Old Carlisle
Track, Cricket Pitch Track (much longer than 22 yards) and finally Rifle Range Track. A pie at the Gellibrand store and
airing up was the closing stage of our Otway Odyssey. The latest edition of the map we used (Spatial Vision’s Otways
map) is available at the store, along with a very useful map of Victoria’s Deserts ($15 each).

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Vol 34 No. 4 -May 2017