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The previous day: Day 3 - Mt Pinnibar to Garron Point Tk river crossing
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 !
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| 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.
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| 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.
Over the next 1 Km we literally had to do the same for both
cars, and the rain did not help the situation.
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| Looking decidedly s...house! |
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| Winch hooked up, Max Trax under the rear left wheel. |
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.
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.
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...
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.
Tonight, we have the entire place to ourselves.
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| Getting some firewood ready with the chainsaw |
