Thread: He Bogged a Jeep

Originally Posted by Arapiles

Way over-dramatic - "lucky to be alive"??

I checked the weather records for Esperance for last Sunday & Monday and there was a top of 17.7 on Sunday and 24.5 on Monday and no rain on either day. Cape Arid is about 150kms east of Esperance, but the weather wouldn't be wildly different to that. Those temps, in the absence of rain, and even with an overnight low of 4, really aren't dangerous. And there was evidently water around to be drunk, so, no, he wasn't in mortal danger.

Yay , a sensible response

To all the armchair warriors who've never been to Israelite Bay or ever bitten off more than they can chew all I can say is keep the D5 / Evoke etc. clean and shiny for its weekly trip to the bowls club and at least give the bloke some credit, sure he stuffed up but at least he was out there having a go, as we all did back in our various mis-spent youths

He was never in any real danger, as Arapiles points out the weather was characteristically mild for this time of year with plenty of ground water available. The story is just another media beat up dramatising but also highlighting the perils of unpreparedness when venturing into the scrub. The Covid shutdown has turned a popular tourist drive into a much less frequented route, normally at this time of year you could have half a dozen or so vehicles traveling here per day though it would have been a bit more serious had it been in January or February but even then a couple of vehicles per day to what is a very popular fishing camp at Israelite Bay and its surrounds.

As for the Jeep, it's a pretty good choice for this type of terrain IMO, relatively light and powerful with wide enough rubber for the conditions. Anyone whose ever been into Israelite Bay will know that part of the route is along tidal salt flats which is unavoidable. The trick I've found (in the 5 tonne Oka especially ) is to keep as close as possible to the scrub line whilst following existing tyre tracks. In places there are many divergent paths and although "all roads lead to Rome" choosing the optimal path can be a bit hit and miss. It would seen the Jeep driver chose poorly.

Still, no harm done and the young bloke has learned some valuable lessons in off road driving/preparedness as we all have at one time or another Even so I doubt he'll be venturing off road again some time soon as it's unlikely dad will lend him the 4WD again for some time. And there is the issue of recovery fees etc. to sort out as well.

"All's well that ends well"

Deano

Originally Posted by scarry

Exactly.

My son found out about them the hard way.He was travelling through part of the Simpson desert at night.
Don't ask me why.

Drove straight into one of those salt flats.
So there the Deefer sat overnight,then 12hours later the next day,it was eventually extracted.....
It was fully loaded as the other vehicle in the group had broken down,a week or so before.

In fact,the Defender was the only vehicle to survive the trip,his mates Patrol broke down and was left in Cooper Peedy.

cooper peedy? wheres that?

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

cooper peedy? wheres that?

Not far from Cooper Pedy

Never been there myself.

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

yep 60 mins will be paying him for his story soon.

I had a fantastic bushfire impacted 4WD trip from Essperance to Ballandonia via Cape Arid . Even have some video of the 50 -100 evening drive into Ballandonia through the burnt/burning landscape and a 400km night drive (run away) to the East to escaped the expected firestorm when the wind picked up the following morning

I shared that all with you all for Zero$$$. Do you mean I can sell my fun and you Gents did not pay

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

I had a fantastic bushfire impacted 4WD trip from Essperance to Ballandonia via Cape Arid . Even have some video of the 50 -100 evening drive into Ballandonia through the burnt/burning landscape and a 400km night drive (run away) to the East to escaped the expected firestorm when the wind picked up the following morning

I shared that all with you all for Zero$$$. Do you mean I can sell my fun and you Gents did not pay

Well, my opinion is that if you requested payment from forum members to watch something, with the number of tight arses on here, you wouldn't get too many 'Likes'.

Here we go; found a little bit of footage from our trip through that country a while back, it's good to hear the purr of the 300tdi

As I wrote earlier: it was a somewhat drier season.

I think there are 3 of my videos from that Israelite Bay area on youtube, e.g.

Israelite Bay telegraph track 133 - YouTube

This is why you need to be careful travel up the beach, as the sand gets driven on top of the kelp by wind and looks like normal beach 5673_23__kelp.jpg

Originally Posted by DeanoH

Yay , a sensible response

To all the armchair warriors who've never been to Israelite Bay or ever bitten off more than they can chew all I can say is keep the D5 / Evoke etc. clean and shiny for its weekly trip to the bowls club and at least give the bloke some credit, sure he stuffed up but at least he was out there having a go, as we all did back in our various mis-spent youths

Absolutely - you should see the places I went in my Hillman Minx, and mates from Uni took a Peugeot 504 into some pretty wild areas in WA. Where this guy messed up was that he didn't have a car load of mates to push him out: reality is that 5 people can push or carry a car through pretty much anything.

In my case, at his age I had the advantage of growing up in the Wimmera which has been bogging vehicles in its black clay since the 1800s, so lots of experience. If that had been me I would've gotten the mud off my rear tyres, (reluctantly) put down some brush under the rear wheels and reversed back in my tracks.

Originally Posted by DeanoH

The Covid shutdown has turned a popular tourist drive into a much less frequented route, normally at this time of year you could have half a dozen or so vehicles traveling here per day though it would have been a bit more serious had it been in January or February but even then a couple of vehicles per day to what is a very popular fishing camp at Israelite Bay and its surrounds.

And no phone reception either, Telstra's maps show even 3G coverage ending about 30ks away from the park.