Our first hop on dirt went without a hitch even a couple of water crossings. Dad not too keen to come in as it is very commercial but the argument of we won’t be back for a long time won out and he acquiesced to one more night of civilization. Set up camp and headed off to do some exploring up Saddle back ridge which was the kids first experience of pushing through sand and up a steep incline to hit the rise and not be able to tell where the road was going when on a single lane on the edge of a cliff. Had been nagging them about keeping windows up to limit the dust. They only nagged me back once when I put the window down so I could clearly see the edge of the cliff. The car managed it like a drive down Main Street. Nearly had to get recovery gear out when a guy in a new land cruiser couldn’t get up the last rise meaning no one could get down, but on 5th attempt made it. Gordon suggested I went down and offered to bring the car up for him but I didn’t feel like a mouth full of abuse today.
Spectacular views well worth the climb. Back down and randomly picked a track to Explosion gorge named because they used to fish by throwing a stick of dynamite into the water. Several great water crossings and some mud puddles which followed up the side of the gorge. Then a few rock steps down to the dry creek bed. I called halt here having watched the Landy scrape on the rocks getting out of the creek bed, we don’t have near their clearance. Squeezed the car off the road as well as we could and walked down to the water. I had put on my much loved hiking boots which have seen 2 overseas trips and thousands of KM on the motorbike. Scrambling over some reasonable sized boulders I slipped sideways and stripped the complete sole off my shoe down to the innersole. Hobbled to the water edge to find a sign warning that a large salty was residing in the area. Parked next to this was a small tinny much to our surprise. Being in the Gorge the sun sets early and quickly so we wasted no time getting through the water crossings with quite large rocks that needed to be dodged. To our amazement there were several vehicles with quite young children heading in. After our dinner one of the vehicles could be heard several Km away as he had taken out his exhaust on the rocks. So many Gung Ho Macho guys here.
Celebrated Gordon’s birthday in front of the fire at the bar – doing it hard.
Spectacular views well worth the climb. Back down and randomly picked a track to Explosion gorge named because they used to fish by throwing a stick of dynamite into the water. Several great water crossings and some mud puddles which followed up the side of the gorge. Then a few rock steps down to the dry creek bed. I called halt here having watched the Landy scrape on the rocks getting out of the creek bed, we don’t have near their clearance. Squeezed the car off the road as well as we could and walked down to the water. I had put on my much loved hiking boots which have seen 2 overseas trips and thousands of KM on the motorbike. Scrambling over some reasonable sized boulders I slipped sideways and stripped the complete sole off my shoe down to the innersole. Hobbled to the water edge to find a sign warning that a large salty was residing in the area. Parked next to this was a small tinny much to our surprise. Being in the Gorge the sun sets early and quickly so we wasted no time getting through the water crossings with quite large rocks that needed to be dodged. To our amazement there were several vehicles with quite young children heading in. After our dinner one of the vehicles could be heard several Km away as he had taken out his exhaust on the rocks. So many Gung Ho Macho guys here.
Celebrated Gordon’s birthday in front of the fire at the bar – doing it hard.
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