Harvey Staples Line

Trip Leader Paul Ryan

Participants: Stamps, Malcolm, Rick, Craig & Michael as tail-end Charlie Guests: Daniel

Sunday 26th February 2011
We all met at the car park opposite the Caltex service station cnr Uduc Rd & South West Hwy ready to set off at 9.15am as planed. Paul welcomed all members and visitors and carefully explained the planned activities, routes, convoy and communication procedures.

A short distance down the road we turned off onto the gravel and headed into the hills, as the road had plenty of corrugations Paul suggested we air down early to smooth out the ride.

It wasn’t long before we came to our first obstacle a log across the road, most of the group go around but Daniel decides on a different strategy try and go over it but unfortunately becomes wedged on top, Craig was directly behind so he was able to quickly winch Daniel off the log and back onto the track.

On the last trip in this area Paul had come across a large hill that we were now heading for one small problem the track we were on was closed to all vehicle so we all turned around to find an alternative route. It took us about 30mins and we were at the top of a very large hill, half the group lead by Paul started to walk down the steep track to make a plan for the decent, when the group came back we all decided that this hill was not worth the risk today. We managed to turn around making the group in reverse order so Michael became trip leader with Malcolm giving directions to the next hill he had marked on his GPS, This was deep rutted track down into the valley. Once at the bottom we lopped back to re-join the power line track a few Km’s down we turn off a track to our left just before the next junction we meet up with LandCruiser Club fortunately they were coming in the opposite direction, once they have passed we head along the fence line adjacent to a farmers property which we follow back to our lunch spot in a wooded and shady area.

After lunch we head out the back of this area down a very scratchy track with loads of over hanging dead tee-trees which leads to a excellent hill climb, halfway up Ben who is driving Malcolm’s car gets bogged and requires a pull from Craig, apart from this we all manage the climb. Once at the top we regroup head down the hill past the lunch area and onto a track that heads back to the main road where we air up at about 2.45pm before heading home.

Thanks Paul for another good “Lock and Lifted” trip.

Michael Gilbert