Thread: The Springs - April 24-26th

Great weekend guys. Thanks to Mick at al for organising what was a huge event. A special event for the boys and I as it was our first attempt at camping and I'm happy to say that the boys (most importantly) and I loved it. Even if it was bloody cold this morning.


We weren't introduced but I think this is Noz?


The camp.......


GuyG


The Snake Pit


Traffic jam exiting the Snake Pit


Jon & Dave Hampson


Busman



The Hampsons


Mick helping out with some sage advice



Busman again........


Hampson's exiting a climb after what we think was a DSC problem (ie it was on) and doing some small damage to the rear bumper

.............and I just realised why I couldn't make any sense of the map they handed out at the office.....it's orientated to the East (up) instead of North

Here are a few more pictures



Nice driving Eve (hope that is spelt right)


Mick in action




I still can't believe how easy Greg made that look



Maybe they were discussing what Xtreme means


What's this the 109 stuck Has anybody seen a beached Turtle ?


Nice bit of rock for a track


Time for new rods Pete

Land Rover wheel alignment 101


Nice air time, Though maybe I should not mention "Air Time"






Hmmm...


Shows over, Next

Great weekend Thanks All

What a great weekend, thanks again for doing all the organising Mick.

As I was riding shotgun I wanted to practice using the new camera. As a result I have 703 photos from the weekend and I think I managed to get quite a few photos of 16 of the 30 cars. I will burn all the photos I have to some CD's and bring them along to the next meeting. Here are some of my favourites after a quick look through them all.
















I can't wait to see the video of Eve driving up that rock climb.
See you all on the next trip.

As I was asked to lead the extreme group on Saturday morning I thought I would provide a little report.

In the group was;
- S2Aexarmy, THE 109
- RRC, aquarangie
- RRC, DRanged
- RRC, Mater (Group Leader)
- D90, Psimpson7
- D1, CheekyD1
- D1, harry
- D1, Stikman (Tail End)
- D2, MickG

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the "Bullets" camera crew for sitting in and taking photos (and I apologize again for putting the go pedal to the floor downhill once I saw the "WARNING XTREME" sign).

Before leaving camp Saturday morning I asked around what tracks people had in mind, the only other thing that I was told other then "we will follow" was "lets check out the canyon on foot".

So the plan was to go straight to the canyon before the heat set in, well driving out of the camp site I missed the turn and ended up going up "Granite Climb" and again missed the "Main Street" going onto "Dougals View", "Two Stubbie Lane", "Pete's Pass", "EFS Creek", "Falls Drive", "Snake Pit", at this point I was well aware that we had zig zagged across the park with a not so direct route to the canyon but we were now on "Main Street" and stopped for a photo on top of "Love Hill".

Found my way to the canyon with no more mistakes and saw the warning sign at the top of the descent to the bottom of the "Canyon Climb". As I started going down I realised how loose the track was with rocks and its steepness and said to my passenger "I did not think I will be driving back out this way" that I have entered.

So continue down and down to the bottom, finding a very sharp left turn between large rocks to start the canyon climb. DRanged asked over the radio "Is there any more room for cars"? and I replied "Once I get out of the way down here one more can fit here in the bottom".

So DRanged followed down, and everyone else walked down. We all walked the canyon climb and I was looking forward to the climb.

Not two car lengths in and I was balancing on my left wheels almost hitting my left bodywork against the rock canyon, from here on out it was a team effort!

We reversed back and added some rock for the left wheels and I raised my left suspension.

This business of almost damaging the left of the vehicle, stopping, reversing and trying a different line happened on three different sections of the climb. And to top it off at the very top the right side of the vehicle was also at risk.

It is understandable that all the other vehicles would have seriously damaged their body work if attempted.

We entered the canyon at 11.01am and finished it at 11.22, not bad with only a little paint rocked off my left rock slider.

Again I would like to thank every one who helped out, guiding me through and everything else that had to happen.

We returned to camp for lunch at 11.50am.

After lunch we drove "Rum Run" with a little delay for Psimpson7 (Defender 90) who halfway down a hill had his front left wheel going left and his front right wheel going right! The group came to a stop and assisted in securing the vehicle, jacking a wheel, removing the bent factory fencing wire track rod, straightening it and refitting it.

Then onto "2nd Gear Climb", "Spring Hill" and "Kanga Ramp" followed by the return to camp for preparations for the roast: the showers.

THANKYOU DRanged for letting me use your road tires for the weekend, excellent rock and dry weather tires!

Great weekend!

Aside from the great feed last night and sitting round the fireplace, the highlight for me was that creek run we did with Bolts leading yesterday afternoon. I had the D3 on quite an angle at one stage

It was also good to catch up with some old faces and meet a few new ones. Need to make sure I don't leave it so long before the next one.

Heres a photo of the camp site. For those who didn't make it, except for the 3 tents up the hill in the top left corner that was all GCLRO!. Quite a crowd.


Rest of my photos can be found here - 2009-04-25 Springs 4WD Trip - a set on Flickr

I'm crunching the video at the moment but my poor PC is taking its sweet ass time so expect them up on YouTube around 2014.

What they all said Fantastic weekend, what a park! What fun!

Some more pic's:

Henrick's climb

The Law

Down Disco Down!

Us doing a High Kick

Just checking out the underbody !

Guy going up 2nd Gear

Pete ??

All lined up for dinner

The big camp

Justin going up 2nd Gear

Eric up 2nd Gear

Us spinning up 2nd Gear

Eve can climb!

The trailer cubby

Little John & Big Jazz!

Awesome fun lets do it again!

Cheers,

Great weekend, and great photos' everyone. Wish someone got a photo of Gary's "half semi-flop" would have liked to see what it looked like from the outside of the car. From inside the car it was pretty damn scary to say the least, I really thought we were going over. I was amazed by how quickly Justin got into position to winch us back to safety.

Cheers
Hendrik