2014 Victoria High Country 4x4: Day 2

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.