173 km
We set off for the track fairly early and stopped by the water tank to max fill but it took forever! We hit the track at approximately 08h45. The track is narrow and follows the higher hills overlooking heathland, its like beach sand and is corrugated.
We did the track from west to east.
Eroded gullies and angle driving with very careful maneuvering of ute and trailer were the order of the morning.
It took us over an hour to get the 11km off the so called main road and to the Pascoe River. The plan was that if we decided that the Pascoe was too difficult, that we would turn around and take Portland Road South and the back North. That was a crap plan as there was absolutely no space to turn around. It was one hell of a jagged, steep, slippery clay slope down and a boulder ridden , steep section out. Ooops!!!! We were going through whether we wanted to or not!
There were four cars in front of us that were preparing for the crossing. The drivers had walked the river, waist deep, checked where the boulders sat in the river and reeled out their winches in prep for recovery.
It was daunting just watching them! The photos don’t do the adrenalin and stress levels any justice !!
The cars struggled through but all made it, the out track is also hairy with all the large boulders.
Christo was first of us in line. Johan guided him by radio. He was told to go slow and in 1st gear low range. This is what he did…but it was too slow and water came into the car.
Johan took the Hilux, trailer and Matt through. He got everything through at a faster pace than Christo and didn’t get any water in trailer or ute. He paused at the base of the exit , out of the deep water and picked the line out. It went pretty well and the steady speed got the ute and trailer out on the first go. Impressive work!
There were cars waiting to do the crossing from the other side. All of us took about 1 hour of waiting for others, watching them and doing the crossing ourselves.
The track had many more kilometers of slow going , very corrugated and washed out ruts.
The next mini adventure was a couple of vertical descents. They are carved into white clay and the clear water creek running through it, makes the water appear a light turquoise blue hue. The 2m or so drop is not one we particularly wanted to go through, so we opted for the chicken run- should be a simpler bypass. There was another obstacle at the end of the chicken run- a large diameter cement pipe that had its top soil and rock covering eroded.
Getting the ute and trailer to this point was easy, but the turn could have been taken a little wider. Ultimately what happened was the combination of trees, the sharp turn and the eroded pipe caused the trailer to become stuck on the tree and multiple recovery efforts began. First a log under the tyre of the trailer, but the trailer only moved a bit up it before sliding off and hitting the side on the tree as well as slipping a bit more off the trail. Next was to use the hilift jack to lift the trailer up and place large rocks in between the tyre and rut. When we started to do this the car handbrake no longer held everything and slowly the vehicles started to move back. So I jumped in to keep the foot brake on. This held things steady. With a few rocks in place Johan steered the vehicle far forward into the bush, missing a tree by millimetres but the trailer could be pulled out, just with a scratch.
We hit the Wenlock River mid afternoon. This is the second and last big obstacle on the track, not to say that the rest of it is easy. Hahahaha
Going down into and through the river was a normal descent, but coming out was steep and clayey. Especially the last 2 vertical meters. Johan engaged his lockers and went for it. All he saw was sky for a few seconds while putting foot to make it across the last couple of meters. The trailer moved side to side quickly but didn’t tip over…phew!!!… and he was over the top!!
I must mention that Christo remained in front to scout out the trail, pick the best route and then did the obstacles first so that he could winch Johan out when or if required.
He could through them all first time too … so the little Landcruiser can get it done too…hahahahaha!
The latter 12km or so of the track were a bit wetter and there were some mud holes to go through, but not bad!
All up the track took us 6 hours and we were so happy to hit a bit of bitumen again as we exited!!!
Well, the bitumen didn’t last too long…it never does up here… and we hit the red corrugated 60km or so worth of road to Brawell Station Tourist Park where we planned to spend the night. This is a working cattle farm that has a good side hustle as a campground. Warm showers and flushing toilets awaited…and those two things are always very welcome after a few days of bush camping! There was also a large bar area where dinner was served, but was unfortunately booked out. We set up tent, defrosted some boerwors, then headed to the bar for a few drinks, well actually just Lara and I had a few…the others just one. I headed off to shower. Live music started at 7pm and continued to 9pm, creating a great atmosphere with classics that many sung along to.
The campground is large with many people stopping over both before and after their adventures to The Tip- or Cape York as it is officially known.