Sunny Corner 17th Dec

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justdrinkbeer

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Just got back from a weekend away with a mate & his missus, could have gone very wrong on a couple of occasions but ended up pretty good.

We left Sydney around 10ish Friday morning, destination a camp site we came across a few weeks ago at Sunny Corner, good trip out there, not much traffic & shopped for food the night before as we always seem to spend our time in the supermarket and end up setting up at night. We got onto the dirt and aired down, I set the MTZ's at 18psi, knowing is a fairly rough & loose track and we would be getting up to 40KPH max. Alex in his Ford Ranger did the same and led the way into the State Forest.
We veered off the road at a fork that marks the start of the only difficult section of the track, and I took the lead as there would be more chance of me getting out backwards than him towing his homemade camper trailer, as we dropped down the hill toward the River crossing it started to become aparent just how much rain had fallen over the last four weeks since we were last here, with pot holes now large enough to easily swallow an unsuspecting wheel (more about that later) and banks where other 4x4's had scrubbed the sides into gentle undulating humps now more akin to mini cliff faces. There were still a few "chicken" tracks to take, which alex did, due to the trailer.
As we aproached the worst part of the track, almost at the bottom, I took the more interesting line to the left of a tree, which unknowingly led me to a decent drop of a couple of feet, off camber, I slowly dropped the front over this edge, and the rear of the truck leant suddenly to the right, and slid a couple of feet over into another rut, that jerked me to my senses a bit and I jumped on the CB to tell Alex to go round.
The alternative route was nearly as bad, and with the Camper Trailer being home made and without a lot of clearance, it scrubbed out as it dropped off a rut and ripped the brand new stabilisers off the back.

We quickly removed the bent up stabilisers from the the trailer and with this mini drama over we continued. I rounded the corner to drop into the river to see that it was at least a foot higher than before, with debris strewn everywhere, up to a couple of feet higher than the roof of my car, I thought about how the river crossing had been absolutely no problem the previous trip and continued down stream, as I rounded the first corner the track started to get deeper, the bow wave up around the head lights and the bottom obviously being torn up from flood water threw the car from side to side, it was here where I made the very amateur mistake of panicking a little, and with my marker tree signalling the exit from the river being washed away by the storm, I missed the exit.
I reversed up to get the exit, only to drop my right rear wheel into a hole and get well and truly bogged, reluctantly (and understandably) alex drove to the rear of my car to effect a winch recovery. At this point my car was sitting on a sharp angle into the river, and the passenger footwell started to fill with water!
Alex parked up behind, in the best place he could, and lead out the winch, once again the nerves kicked in as the winch was below the level of the water, as was the camper trailer containing his 40litre Engel!
The Aldi winch didn't miss a beat however as he winched my truck just far enough to make the turn and climb the exit on the otherside with ease, which surprised me as it looked (to my untrained eye obviously) like a section out of Tuff Trucks!
Alex followed, but the combination of A/T tyres, camper trailer & it being a Ford, meant the winch came out again and he hauled up the other side.

A couple of hundred metres later we parked, set up the trailer & its invaluable awning, and my Swag & ARB touring awning (I like to keep things relitively simple when i'm camping), with the fire lit, and Lamb Shanks in the camp oven it was time to sit back and watch the sunset with a few beers.

The next day we went for a drive back over the river, which had dropped a little over night, and up the track, this didn't prove all to difficult, we both took some of the harder lines, although we'd have needed some serious underbody protection to consider taking them all!
As we headed back to camp, we dropped into the same section that damaged the trailer and I decided a harder line was order of the day, again the front of the car dropped into a hole, this time unweighting it to the left hand side, far enough for all my clothes etc on the passenger seat to end up in the footwell. "Don't move" came the call over the CB, "I've got to get your camera" followed, a quick couple of pics and my bum started to release its grip on my undies, and with Alex hanging on the right corner of my tray I drove out of the bottom section, it honestly was that close to tipping over, the pictures just don't do it justice.
drama abaited again, we proceded back to camp, knocked out a dinner of roast pork, home made bread and chocolate pud, before sitting under the huge awning of the trailer and waiting for the rain to pass.

Back home by 2.00pm on Sunday, a very stagnant smelling car with a couple more pinstripes but other than that no damage that I know of, (no extended breathers on anything though, might pay to get serviced) and a bit of experience under the belt, and stories to tell.

So what did I learn this weekend?
1- ALWAYS identify entry/exit points of river crossings.
2- ALWAYS walk river crossings first, the water wasn't even cold, there is over $60,000 tied up in my car and I could have buggered it.
3- Hard lines might be fun, but i'm never going to get it to flex up like Joshy's nav, so play within your limits, again I could have lost all.
4- My 265/75R16 Mickey T MTZ's are frickin awesome, absolutely out performed Alex's ProComp Xtreme A/T's.
5- I don't want a camper trailer.
6- Crown lager isn't as bad as I thought.
 

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Few more pics
 

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And again!
 

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"a bit of experience under the belt, and stories to tell"

thats it all the way :) thanks for sharing and good pics
 

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