Levuka 2012

**CheekyD1** · 21st January 2012, 09:41 PM

The Cheeky Report

Cheeky and I got up really, really early 7:30, we were warmed up and running on 7 cylinders.
We trundled down to Levuka, stopping for fuel at Kyogle
Signing in we rolled into camp, to find Chrissie on guard in the camp, We had just missed the convoy by 15 minutes. Cheeky was keen to do some wheeling, she is only really happy in low range, so we set of in search of the crew. Did not take long, they were playing in the rainforest south of the campsite. Levuka being Levuka it was described as moist, much to Grimace’s amusement “She said Moist”
After some splashing around in the mud, it was a quick stop in the camp for lunch, then we broke into twp groups. Steveo disappeared with group 2,.Pete led the other group into the harder stuff.
We were heading for Dingo’s but wound up doing Rosemary’s which was very moist (poo now I said Moist) We were at the bottom when Pete came on the radio announcing that he was going to have to break out his winch.

The rest of the group looked at each other, if Pete is winching we are screwed.

After Pete cleared the top, Harry revved up his V8 and hit the track, after a long period of very big RPM we all celebrated Harry being able to get to the top, right up until we saw his break lights sliding back down. After several attempts Harry was winched also. NOS was next up, he made it to within a couple yards of the top, after some more sliding he also winched.
Cheeky was up next, she was copping some from the spectators, mocking regarding the number of cylinders still working, seemed to be the order of the day. All this spurred Cheeky on and she just scampered to the top under her own steam. Yeah..

After that all the others managed to summit the hill as well.
We drove down the bottom of Dingo’s after much slipping and sliding we all got down safely, with the exception of the eggs in Grimace’s fridge.
We then drove up the other end of Dingo’s which was untypically dry and therefore much easier than usual, finally we did Havoc, Cheeky has never managed to get over that stupid tree root before but after a couple of tries Today was the day.
So all in all Cheeky did good even if she was only working on 6 and three quarter cylinders….

**harry** · 22nd January 2012, 06:18 PM

well a big thankyou to all for coming on this trip.
sat morning grimace and i with pete as naviguesser in grimaces car did a quick recce, about 20 minutes and set a plan to run a quick trip to take all the cars on, this was to be an easy intro to levuka rainforest with a simple creek run then a bit of easy but technical challenges.

sorry chaps and chappettes, pete made a slight error of judgement and grimace and i agreed with him. how silly of us.

in the end it all turned out ok with everyone getting through with some assistance and some real recoveries and tows up the slippery slopes.

note to self, don't put a d3 or d4 behind a d2 diesel, the d3's are a bit heavy and need a v8 to extract them when sliding down a slope backwards.
good work though stevo.

the arvo proved a different story, with the cars separated into two groups, 'ar, don't wanna break it but'
and the 'don't want to scratch it or break it'
stevo led the others and i went along behind the 90 of pete and sam.
we had a good time and sam even drove some tricky hilly bits leaving pete to fend for himself.
i sort of got lost later in the day and found myself alone stuck sideways across a wet rutted deep crossing with the rear jammed into a bank, causing the engine to stop and refuse to start due to the exhaust being plugged with 4000 tons of australia jammed in the exhaust pipe.

saved by stevo, thanks for that.
i then gave it some stick and went back to havoc to join the others,
seems on the way i chopped the front locker hose and needed some big numbers or noise to get up it, but made it ok.

then things started to fall apart,
jack or grimace informed me that fluid was decending to eaarth from my vehicle,
bugger cracked another steering box pipe, thats three, new one coming.

then this morning we packed up to leave,
took the maps back to the house and rolled my trailer in the front yard of the house, turns our the right spring broke all three leaves, the wheel drifted aft and upset the whole shebang,

**** **** ****, as grangmother would say,
we managed to set it back on its wheels and shoved all the stuff back into the car, with noz taking the club's generator home and mate david taking my bbq box.

the woodenbong nrma popped out to take the trailer to hospital.
the trip home was interesting with no power steering, but all ok.

thanks everyone.

oh, some pictures.
some people say i am a bit anal about tying down my loads, nothing fell out.

**Grimace** · 22nd January 2012, 06:36 PM

-Grimaces Trip Report-

There was lots of numbers....

in action

The End

**WhiteD3** · 22nd January 2012, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by harry

note to self, don't put a d3 or d4 behind a d2 diesel, the d3's are a bit heavy and need a v8 to extract them when sliding down a slope backwards.
good work though stevo.

Can't wait for the pics

**djhampson** · 22nd January 2012, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by Harry

note to self, don't put a d3 or d4 behind a d2 diesel, the d3's are a bit heavy and need a v8 to extract them when sliding down a slope backwards.
good work though stevo.

Originally Posted by WhiteD3

Can't wait for the pics

I'd like to point out that one of the D3s got up without needing a hand from Smokey!

**WhiteD3** · 22nd January 2012, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by djhampson

I'd like to point out that one of the D3s got up without needing a hand from Smokey!

Never doubted you Dave

**inside** · 22nd January 2012, 08:45 PM

My Trip Report:

We went to park, made fire, drove in mud, made another fire, drove in mud. Went home.

Here are some pictures:

Here's my Isuzu revving at 6000rpm. Well it does when the video is running at 300% of normal speed. Boring but yeah....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xL98vFlus]Levuka 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

**NOZ** · 22nd January 2012, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by djhampson

I'd like to point out that one of the D3s got up without needing a hand from Smokey!

I think Garry's D3 did make it up under its own steam, it took a few goes.

**Psimpson7** · 22nd January 2012, 09:10 PM

Ok, Here goes!

Firstly, the 90 not only made it to a trip, and around on the trip, it also made it home... and not on an RACQ truck this time!!! Woo and indeed hoo!!!

We left home in convoy with Grimace and headed via Beaudesert for some food and last minute supplies arriving at the park about 9pm.

We set up camp, sat by the fire and then went to bed.

Early on Saturday morning, Harry and Grimace with me as passenger, went for a quick run to scope out an easy track for the mornings first run. We thought it would be reasonably trouble free and everyone would get round quite quickly... That proved to be wrong

sorry for how long it took to get everyone round.

The plan was to head down track 1 out of the campsite and then head up rock n roll gully (most cars taking the first exit and 5 or 6 taking the second harder exit) and then go around one of the loop tracks back to camp.

Jason and family in the start of the creek run.

me:

Grant (Presto) taking the second creek exit bank:

Guy doing the same:

Grimace:

DJ in the mud hole on the loop track - both the d3's were very impressive in this:

Gary:

Grant:

Noz in his very smart 110:

Garry - possibly the best sounding v8 of the weekend!:

Craig:

Harry:

After lunch we split into 2 groups. Group 2 was led by stevo and took half the cars, and we headed off with the other half and onto rosemarys road.

This was ridiculously slippy. Even after a few tries I only got to about 50m from the top and we had to winch. The problem was that as soon as you stopped turning the wheels the cars slid backwards at about 30kmh. We had another problem here in that I hadn't got any recovery gear set up and every one else was at the bottom.

I had to swap seats with sam and to do this, I had to leave it driving in gear with no one in it while we swapped over so I could go and rig up the winch. It took 2 pulls to make it up.

As the slime got removed most people after the first 3 managed to drive up which made it a lot quicker going!

Down Dingos Run:

Sam and I:

Gary on Havoc crossing:

JohnR:

Sunday Morning we again split into 2 groups - our group had a slight hickup when the coil wire fell off on grants car - Grimace fixed it pretty quickly:

What are they laughing at?

LOL:

That's all the pics I have - thanks everyone for a good weekend. We had a really good turn out of about 15 or 16 cars and I hope everyone enjoyed it.

cheers
Pete+Sam

**Garry** · 22nd January 2012, 09:12 PM

Gents

But let's be honest, smokey could not skull drag my sorry a@&$ up the hill as it turns out, not that it was'nt appreciated

Thanks anyway stevo

Turns out it just needed more ponies whipped from the 4.4 to get up said slippery slope, I think the few before me polished the track for me though

I too had a trailer incident on the way home, just 100m from Harry's. I forgot to latch the pin on the hitch and it bounced off, the chain catching it but not without damaging the hitch beyond repair it did latch long enough for me to get home safely though with the help from a claw hammer and a wheel brace

All that aside it was a very enjoyable weekend, can't stress enough how good it is to catch up with everyone as I miss too many trips

I look forward to the next trip and plan to learn from my experience from this one

I can and will take away from this trip the best sounding low range first gear hill climb and the most likely to succumb to peer pressure

G

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