Day 4 - The longest 25 Km day

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The previous day: Day 3 - Mt Pinnibar to Garron Point Tk river crossing

More photos here

After a restful night of sleep, we thought the worse of the rains were behind us, and we looked forward to a good day ahead........then !

First I noticed the fridge was turned off, and the AC inverter shut down, well perhaps the battery was not properly charged yesterday....but WHY?!

Continued to the routine morning inspections, I saw one of the fan belts for the alternator was mangled, and the other, flipped inside out.  I bet it was due to the high revs during the climb to Mt Pinnibar that caused it to slip loose, and eventually mangled and flipped.

Then the rain started to come, really annoying !

Changing the fan belts in the rain and mud.

It was a good 90 minutes, before we replaced the fan belt with the spare, a task made harder by the falling rain.

So now we still have the task of climbing out of this deep valley on some unknown tracks, in this wet condition !  Not to mention that the map from our present position does not quite point to a proper track ahead.

We started from the top-right, it is only just 4.5 Km of climb, where all the jiggles are, winching & track building

Seeing that there is only one track ahead, we moved on.

The first 1 Km or so, we encountered no real issues, and I was quietly hoping for an alright day.

Just when I was somewhat more optimistic, ruts started to appear on the steep track, and Langi had to negotiate through them and across them. And I was still in my Simpson Desert mode, thinking of only ramping up momentum. With a petrol engine with no lockers, that seemed the par.

All of a sudden, Langi dropped into a deep hole in the left, and stalled, then slid back, the rear right wheel was fully lodged into the rut, with Langi 3 tonne weight leaning onto the right side wall.  My first instinct was to stop Andre from coming up any further by radioing.

After a few tries to move forward, with shaving some of the soils in front of the front wheel, the rear wheel just did not want to budge, even with some digging around it.  The Max Trax was used, but it won't even begin to grip.

Finally the decision was made to winch the car backward, after preparing a more level ground for it to rest on, then figuring out the next step.  But it has to be executed quite precisely, lest the car can slid into an awkward angle.  And it worked, with the rear wheel riding out the rut over the Max Trax.

With Andre guiding in front, I was able to crawl Langi step by step up, straddling across the deep ruts over some very narrow ridges.

Looking decidedly s...house!

Winch hooked up, Max Trax under the rear left wheel.

Over the next 1 Km we literally had to do the same for both cars, and the rain did not help the situation.

Just as we pushed on a little further over some steep but solid tracks, there it came ....this section was crisscrossed with deep ruts together with sink holes. We had to resort to rebuilding the track by filling in all the deep holes with stones, and working out the line to take over a 200m climb, almost step by step.  Woo...ow,  we cleared that with no drama, just !

And that were all on Garron Point Track, narrow, steep and rutty......it was a tough 5 Km climb out of the deep valley, my dreaded dream had come true !

As we move southwards onto Escarpment Track, then South Escarpment Track, we encountered a couple of large fallen trees, one is demonstrably newly fallen, just to show that, fallen trees are a frequent event in any forests.  

Fortunately a bypass can be found, our chainsaws were still not needed.

Finally, we reached Nunniong road, after, at least, from my perspective, the longest 25 Km I've even done, a good 5 hours passed since we left our camp site.

At that stage, Andre was showing sign of weariness, plus a little love-sick, and definitely had no more appetite for more adventures, he elected to take the main road home.  I was sorry to see him leaving, but understandingly.   I am sure TC was also a little un-nerved with all the excitements happening on his first ever 4x4 remote trip, but we opted to push on for a few more days, if the weather turned better, which was on the forecast.

After bidding goodbye with Andre, we went straight to Moscow Villa, which has a legend of its own.

Moscow Villa, turned out to be as good its reputation, probably qualifies for a 5-star rating as far as huts in the wilderness are concerned. 

It was built by Billy Ah-Chow, a bushman in the '60s, of Chinese heritage.  Here is a link to a bit of the history of the hut...

History of Moscow Villa, unfortunately due to the improper formatting of the page, I have to cut and paste this bit here...

Quote

 A story about Moscow Villa was often told by Bill. At the height of the McCarthy era and the Menzies government's attempt to ban the Communist party a group of officials of the Forrests Commission toured East Gippsland, including Moscow Villa (although they did not know it as that).

    They got out of their car to be confronted with a sign (Moscow Villa) above two bright red gate posts. They erupted. Bill said that when they calmed down he told them the following: (It was a story told well and I am sure I can remember it verbatim.

    "I built this hut single handed, and with the exception of two things, I bought everything that needed to be bought, and carried all of the items here. That's why I thought I could name it what I wanted to. I finished the hut the day it was announced that the battle for Moscow had been won. If you can remember (he told the officials) Russia was on our side and that was the first defeat of the Germans. I thought it was an appropriate way to celebrate a win in those dark days. Moscow Villa has other, deeper meanings for me. M.O.S.C.O.W. V.I. L..L. A. " He spelt out. He ticked the words off on his fingers "My Own Summer Cottage. Officials Welcome. Visitors Invited. Light Luncheon Available. The kettle's on. Come inside. By the way - the two things I did not buy were the gate posts. They were supplied by the Forests Commission, and came already painted!" It is sufficient to say that the name and gate posts remained as they were.

And thus Bill was able to keep in well with the officials, despite not wishing to have a great deal to do with the "shiny bums" as he liked to call them.

UNQUOTE

The hut is solidly built, with a fire place and can house 10 - 20 campers if the weather is too harsh outside.

Getting some firewood ready with the chainsaw

Tonight, we have the entire place to ourselves.

More photos here: Day 4 - The Longest 25 Km

Next :  Day 5 --- to be continued.

Day 3 - Mt Pinnibar - Garron Pt Track river crossing

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Previous Day: Day 2- Going up Mt Pinnibar

We were lucky enough to have a dry and calm night, despite being up 1772 m on the peak of Mt Pinnibar.

There were a group of passerby last night who questioned if we knew how cold the temperature would be?!  I answered: "0", preparing for the worst.  In fact, the coldest during the night turned out to be a comfortable 9 Deg and no windchill.

The morning mist was well underneath us, leaving a clear view for us to see the sunrise.  And what a sunrise we had !

More photos here: Mt Pinnibar - Garron Point Track

We set off back on the Shade Creek Upper Track after alerting Andre to the steep see-only-sky up and down turn.  

It was a nice drive down the track, through Wheelers Hut with a lunch stop at Buenba Flat.  In view of the time, aiming to reach Moscow Villa tonight, we gave Buckwong Hut a miss.

It was an uneventful drive, on good condition dirt road, with a couple of detours due to road closures undocumented on the map.

McFarlane Lookout on Beloka Rd

It was not until we were half way down the steep and narrow Garron Pt Track, that it dawned to me, we probably won't make it to Moscow Villa tonight, as there was the prospect of climbing out the deep valley that we are heading down.  And I crossed my finger that the climb will not be too difficult like the down track which has deep ruts all over the place.  Little did we know about what lied ahead.

We had to stop the car to let the brakes to cool down, the brake's disc temp was close to 200 Deg, an unfortunate aspect of driving a petrol engine car, where engine breaking is not strong.

When we got down to the bottom, and facing the prospect of having to climb out of the valley, a decision was made to set up camp for the night with the beautiful camping site, which is  somewhat surrounded by tall gum trees. We have to set up our tents mindful of the potential dangers of fallen branches.

As it turned out, it was a good decision, heavy rain was upon us as soon as we setup tents, just after we finished cooking.  The water proofing that I did to the awning turned out to be just perfect.

And we had a good wash in the cold stream water.

More photos here: Mt Pinnibar - Garron Point Track

Next: Day 4 - The Longest 25 Km Day

Day 2 - Going up Mt Pinnibar

Previous Day:  Day 1 - A long and Boring Drive

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The morning wasn't looking promising with mist floating around our lodge at Thredbo, but the weather forest says clear skies ahead. So we put all the doubts away, and moved out, down the long and winding steep slope to Tom Groggin.

The smiling faces of TC & Andrew before heading out of Thredbo, will they be smiling tonight ?

After descending the 20 Km or so steep and winding roads leading to Tom Groggin, we were greeted by 'Roo Family..........hundreds of them, large and small.  It must have been hard for them last night, missing us !

After bidding goodbye to the greeting party, we headed straight to the Murray River crossing......wondering if it is crossable.

Murray River crossing at Tom Groggin

It was the lowest I have seen, not even hub height.....so it was a simple matter of running through the bow line of rounded rocks, and we breached the State line onto Victoria in no time.

 

The next was to find our way to the Mt Pinnibar track.  Following the map would have meant crossing into the Tom Groggin property.  It appears that the map isn't correct anymore, but we managed to find our way on a track along the western boundary Tom Groggin, between reality and the general direction suggested by the Hema Map on hand, we finally found Mt Pinnibar Track.

It was supposed to be a steep & dry weather only track, and there were heavy rain yesterday.  Not too bad so far, steep it is, for sure, slightly slippery but nothing too concerning yet.  I was still thinking we can make it to Buenbra Flat or even Buckwong Hut in the late afternoon.

Until my car was thrown into a slanted angle across a steep and muddy section...then I started to have this creepy feeling that the day is going to be much more than boring.

After filling the deep hole in the rut with rocks by the team, I was able to get out of the eerie angle, and continued upwards by taking a different line.  It was quite a slippery section, and hard going without momentum.  For a short moment, the engine was revving above 6000 rpm.

Further up, on a flat section, I waited for Andre to catch up, and was readying with a camera to video the Prado rounding the corner of the very steep and rocky section.  But there were only the engine noise down below, but nothing appeared. I sensed something was afoot.  So I went back to the car to call him on the UHF.

In fact Andre was trying to raise us on the UHF......another lesson for carrying a switched on hand held UHF all the time.

His front left tyre was off bead after taking a wrong line, over some tree roots. And a trim panel came  off one of the front doors was lying on the ground.

We hurried down to help......

After much deliberation, we finally worked out the best way was to use the winch to keep the car secured whilst rolling it slowly back down to the next flatter section.  After some delicate maneuvering, we managed to avoid ripping the tyre off the rim totally, it would have meant a much longer day. 

I can assure anyone, changing tyre on such a slope with loose soil is not something one wants to do everyday.

After the hour long drama, it was virtually impossible to reach the planned camp site at Buenba Flat, let alone Buchwong Hut.  But it was only mid afternoon, so that was still the option for reaching Wheelers Creek Hut.  So I thought.

When we finally crawled our way up the final rocky "staircase" before the summit for Mt Pinnibar, the sunny blue sky day laid the spectacular landscapes right in front of us. At 1772 m, we had a 270 deg panoramic view of the southern and eastern mountains around Mt Pinnibar.

Here are  more photos :- Up Mt Pinnibar

When we were ready to push on, unfortunately, Andre discovered that the trim panel of the front door had skidded off his top rack, and he had to revert back to find it.  We spent the next 30 minutes enjoying the views.....may be we should camp here...just a tiny little neuro pulse.

Andre on his way back.

On Andre's return, after spending a few more minutes to take advantage of the Telstra mobile signal, I signaled that it is time to move on if we were to make it to Wheelers Creek Hut for the night.

I pointed Langi onto Shady Creek Upper Track...an eerie looking track with a step rolling slope on the one side.

The eerie looking Shady Creek Upper Track - look at the steep rolling slope on the side.

As I rolled onto the entrance of the track, I thought he was looking, but apparently, he was still busy with his mobile phone.  It was my mistake that I thought he saw where we were heading. After a 100 meters or so, he assured me that he is coming soon through the UHF. So we continued, quietly crawling through the flat but eerie track...the only saving grace was the deep ruts guiding the wheels.  There was this ramp up a tinyl flat top with a sharp right turn that no driver could see the way ahead while peaking the front.....woooww!  The only view was the blue sky !!

After that, I sensed Andre's been way too quiet, and he was nowhere to be seen on the track looking back. Trying to raise him received no reply.....but there was no room to turn back.  So I continued further to find some flat ground and tried him a few more times on the radio. Finally, he crackled through.  It appeared that he had headed down a different track, at a totally different angle from Mt Pinnibar.  And his GPS was not working.

So the only option was to revert back, to meet up with him again...the same eerieness and sharp up and down turn !!

It was another 10 minutes or so, before we reached Mt Pinnibar summit again. As predicted, Andre reappeared another few minutes later from the other track, somewhat unsettled with all that drama for the day.....

So we decided to set up camp for the night...to take advantage of the good, calm weather.

And it was an excellent decision and outcome.  The sunset was like a poem, and the company was jovial.  The night was calm, with the Milky Way clearly visible.

Here are more photos :- Up Mt Pinnibar

Here is the footprint of our 2nd day

Next Day: Day 3 - Mt Pinnibar to Garron Point Track river crossing