K
Krankin
Guest
I've worked it out... look up a few pics and youll see all the folk around the fire at night, i reckon it was the 550 in there given as a sacrifice to the gods for underperforming and that burntout heap is all that remains.
Muster Wrap up and reports
- Thread starter WoodyD40
- Start date
Help Support Nissan Navara Forum:
i spoke to the owner re burnt out quad
it was "some pommy fella they had spraying weeds" apparently there was a dam very close by but instead of pushing it into dam when it first caught alight he decided to stand around and then ring mrs ados,had a general chat for a minute or 2 then said oohh by the way theres something wrong with the quadbike, mr ados was p$##ed off cause it was very dry at the time and could have started a bushfire
short farming career for the pommy aparently
it was "some pommy fella they had spraying weeds" apparently there was a dam very close by but instead of pushing it into dam when it first caught alight he decided to stand around and then ring mrs ados,had a general chat for a minute or 2 then said oohh by the way theres something wrong with the quadbike, mr ados was p$##ed off cause it was very dry at the time and could have started a bushfire
short farming career for the pommy aparently
I suppose my 5 cents (can't do 2c any more, and the 5c is probably not long lived either) should be put in as well.
I decided to take Thursday off completely rather than arriving late Thursday night and I'm bloody glad I did. We were already packed, just a few things to organise Thursday morning and off we went.
Immediately it was obvious that we weren't going to have a good drive - a strong headwind prevailed, which the weather service actually forecast correctly although there was little I could do to avoid it. We were also a little heavier than usual, so the climb up the range was going to be tedious ...
And sure enough it was. We ought to have been able to make Gilgandra (about 360km) on a single tank but we had to put in over 70L of fuel at Dunedoo. To make matters worse I'm standing at the BP which is a little servo on a street corner with a cover that only covers the tight, narrow inside part of the driveway, it's not a high flow bowser and it's now starting to hail. I forgot to put on a helmet.
The hail thankfully wasn't large, we pressed on but by the time we reached the Tooraweenah turnoff where my first road sign was to be placed, the weather had turned filthy again and I decided to not put the sign there immediately, I'd put it there first thing Friday morning.
We placed a couple of signs in the ground, met Peter on the way in and then Woody & family. We proceeded to the camp site and set up at a reasonable distance that we both thought would allow people to spot us first, so they knew where to come, and give people enough room behind us. It turned out that we should probably have camped closer to the shearer's quarters, because we ended up being a little isolated from everyone.
With the campers set up we looked at signage and parked the cars so that we could put one of the large Nissan banners across between the two vehicles. The weather got really bad on Thursday night, we had to pull down our awning, secure a lot of stuff inside the cars - it blew a gale. Still, everything survived and none of the showbags or prizes were damaged.
Friday morning we set off to get some firewood - that was fun. The wood was particularly hard and heavy - the ol' chains needed sharpening a couple of times. I'd hate to have been using a bow saw on it.
That was when we met Rob - Shrek - and his family. They had a 2T trailer which they were loading firewood into and we left them to their gathering while we went to drop a tree that the owner asked us to. Unbeknownst to us, Rob & family dropped off their load of wood at the cottage that they stayed at then drove off again to get more wood. They arrived where Woody and I were busy and announced that this load was for us! They helped us with yet another load, then loaned us the trailer for a third and fourth load which I hauled behind my car (and that's how my car got so muddy).
Of course, Rob was up there to do some 4WDing but wanted to do it in a group - and we thought he'd helped every single one of us, so our answer was an emphatic "Yes, come with us!". We hoped nobody minded too much.
Most of the people arrived after lunchtime Friday and I tried to film the vehicles as they entered the campsite, so that we had some of that footage for the Muster video. Bosshog arrived and set up camp beside us and the gap looked to be way too big back to where everyone else was camped ... too late to move now! In a way it probably wasn't too bad, because I had to run a generator to keep the ice cream cold in the back of my Navara and didn't want that too close to everyone else.
Saturday we moved the signage to the woolshed, welcomed everyone and Scotty reminded us how much I like to ramble on (how's this post working for you, Scotty?). We handed out the showbags which we didn't think were too bad, especially since we'd scored new air filters for everyone that got in early. Next time, though, I'll get a better bloody microphone. For that matter, my two-way radios were also less than spectacular, but read on - we've fixed that.
People went off on the tracks - a good number of vehicles went, too. I remained at the campsite as I wasn't using the tracks. We took some long-range pics of the vehicles we could see up on the hill and the tracks on the western slop of the hill as seen from the campsite became darker, particularly where a dark blue D22 with a loud, loud engine had passed. Might have been over a kilometre away from us, but we could see where the V8 had been.
Saturday night approached and we asked the resident arsonist to get proceedings underway and a fine job he did too. We were limited to campfires in the tractor rims which was a good thing, in my opinion - it meant we HAD to congregate in one place and we didn't risk a grassfire. I know the place was wet as anything at times, but the Gilgandra and Warrumbungle Shires had already started their fire restrictions as of 1 Sep so we did the right thing.
Because of the rain, we decided that the Saturday night run up through the tracks would be a little too dangerous. I don't think the decision was enjoyed by everyone, but we're all still alive now, so if anyone could pop into the alternate universe and let us know if we were right or wrong that'd be great.
Sunday morning was cool the weather clearing up a little and I walked around and found several people interested in a trip to Siding Springs Observatory. We left at about 11am on a leisurely drive around to the mountaintop. The view from up there was stunning, we entered the cafeteria and paid an entry fee - $5 each - to see a few displays in a smallish area, which left us wanting a little more for our money. We then walked out and up path to the telescope itself - it was awesome.
We drove back, and having been forewarned about Hickey Falls, we drove back to camp to have lunch then gathered a few more people who wanted to see these falls, about 16km north of the Tooraweenah Rd/Newell Hwy intersection. The falls weren't huge, but they were visually appealing and definitely flowing well after the rains. The rock formations were quite interesting, I did take a few photos of these and they'll be on the DVD we send around.
The property owner then invited all the kids over to the farmhouse to see the baby horses, one of which was just 2 weeks old. They were cute, the kids loved it. Got some photos of that as well - and it looked like Scotty was having a great time caring for a mare that was in foal and a little distressed.
Another track run (with some of those that came to Siding Springs) left that afternoon, and two cars went up during the night. It's a shame that my camera refused to take good shots of the mountaintop, because from the campsite with the top of the hill lit up by driving lights it was visually spectacular.
Monday morning we got busy packing. There were extra goodies that were handed out for everyone and we all started saying goodbye.
I think the muster went pretty smoothly even with the poor weather which Mother Nature just teased us with on Monday as we were leaving with an absolutely beautiful day. The run home went smoothly and thankfully we didn't see too much traffic.
After our return - and my inability to win any prizes at all - my wife took me to ARB and picked out the identical air compressor, the identical ezy deflator and an inflator with gauge. We ordered a 70L Long Ranger auxiliary tank as well - I couldn't believe she did that!
We then went to Ray's Outdoors on Thursday to be confronted by a "All VIPs get 25% off" and decided now was the time to buy the bigger water tanks for the caravan. Not only did we do that, but we bought a GME TX3540 radio (the one with the remote handset) for $350 and a GME 6.6dB broomstick antenna for $150. These were $449 and $249 respectively in ARB - we saved a bundle!
I'm looking forward to the next outing. Many people at the muster said they enjoyed it and I told them I'd change the NSWNOG group name (done) and we'd start organising more trips - already planning one for the end of November, so I'll post that up soon.
It was FANTASTIC meeting everyone. I can't wait to do it again!
I decided to take Thursday off completely rather than arriving late Thursday night and I'm bloody glad I did. We were already packed, just a few things to organise Thursday morning and off we went.
Immediately it was obvious that we weren't going to have a good drive - a strong headwind prevailed, which the weather service actually forecast correctly although there was little I could do to avoid it. We were also a little heavier than usual, so the climb up the range was going to be tedious ...
And sure enough it was. We ought to have been able to make Gilgandra (about 360km) on a single tank but we had to put in over 70L of fuel at Dunedoo. To make matters worse I'm standing at the BP which is a little servo on a street corner with a cover that only covers the tight, narrow inside part of the driveway, it's not a high flow bowser and it's now starting to hail. I forgot to put on a helmet.
The hail thankfully wasn't large, we pressed on but by the time we reached the Tooraweenah turnoff where my first road sign was to be placed, the weather had turned filthy again and I decided to not put the sign there immediately, I'd put it there first thing Friday morning.
We placed a couple of signs in the ground, met Peter on the way in and then Woody & family. We proceeded to the camp site and set up at a reasonable distance that we both thought would allow people to spot us first, so they knew where to come, and give people enough room behind us. It turned out that we should probably have camped closer to the shearer's quarters, because we ended up being a little isolated from everyone.
With the campers set up we looked at signage and parked the cars so that we could put one of the large Nissan banners across between the two vehicles. The weather got really bad on Thursday night, we had to pull down our awning, secure a lot of stuff inside the cars - it blew a gale. Still, everything survived and none of the showbags or prizes were damaged.
Friday morning we set off to get some firewood - that was fun. The wood was particularly hard and heavy - the ol' chains needed sharpening a couple of times. I'd hate to have been using a bow saw on it.
That was when we met Rob - Shrek - and his family. They had a 2T trailer which they were loading firewood into and we left them to their gathering while we went to drop a tree that the owner asked us to. Unbeknownst to us, Rob & family dropped off their load of wood at the cottage that they stayed at then drove off again to get more wood. They arrived where Woody and I were busy and announced that this load was for us! They helped us with yet another load, then loaned us the trailer for a third and fourth load which I hauled behind my car (and that's how my car got so muddy).
Of course, Rob was up there to do some 4WDing but wanted to do it in a group - and we thought he'd helped every single one of us, so our answer was an emphatic "Yes, come with us!". We hoped nobody minded too much.
Most of the people arrived after lunchtime Friday and I tried to film the vehicles as they entered the campsite, so that we had some of that footage for the Muster video. Bosshog arrived and set up camp beside us and the gap looked to be way too big back to where everyone else was camped ... too late to move now! In a way it probably wasn't too bad, because I had to run a generator to keep the ice cream cold in the back of my Navara and didn't want that too close to everyone else.
Saturday we moved the signage to the woolshed, welcomed everyone and Scotty reminded us how much I like to ramble on (how's this post working for you, Scotty?). We handed out the showbags which we didn't think were too bad, especially since we'd scored new air filters for everyone that got in early. Next time, though, I'll get a better bloody microphone. For that matter, my two-way radios were also less than spectacular, but read on - we've fixed that.
People went off on the tracks - a good number of vehicles went, too. I remained at the campsite as I wasn't using the tracks. We took some long-range pics of the vehicles we could see up on the hill and the tracks on the western slop of the hill as seen from the campsite became darker, particularly where a dark blue D22 with a loud, loud engine had passed. Might have been over a kilometre away from us, but we could see where the V8 had been.
Saturday night approached and we asked the resident arsonist to get proceedings underway and a fine job he did too. We were limited to campfires in the tractor rims which was a good thing, in my opinion - it meant we HAD to congregate in one place and we didn't risk a grassfire. I know the place was wet as anything at times, but the Gilgandra and Warrumbungle Shires had already started their fire restrictions as of 1 Sep so we did the right thing.
Because of the rain, we decided that the Saturday night run up through the tracks would be a little too dangerous. I don't think the decision was enjoyed by everyone, but we're all still alive now, so if anyone could pop into the alternate universe and let us know if we were right or wrong that'd be great.
Sunday morning was cool the weather clearing up a little and I walked around and found several people interested in a trip to Siding Springs Observatory. We left at about 11am on a leisurely drive around to the mountaintop. The view from up there was stunning, we entered the cafeteria and paid an entry fee - $5 each - to see a few displays in a smallish area, which left us wanting a little more for our money. We then walked out and up path to the telescope itself - it was awesome.
We drove back, and having been forewarned about Hickey Falls, we drove back to camp to have lunch then gathered a few more people who wanted to see these falls, about 16km north of the Tooraweenah Rd/Newell Hwy intersection. The falls weren't huge, but they were visually appealing and definitely flowing well after the rains. The rock formations were quite interesting, I did take a few photos of these and they'll be on the DVD we send around.
The property owner then invited all the kids over to the farmhouse to see the baby horses, one of which was just 2 weeks old. They were cute, the kids loved it. Got some photos of that as well - and it looked like Scotty was having a great time caring for a mare that was in foal and a little distressed.
Another track run (with some of those that came to Siding Springs) left that afternoon, and two cars went up during the night. It's a shame that my camera refused to take good shots of the mountaintop, because from the campsite with the top of the hill lit up by driving lights it was visually spectacular.
Monday morning we got busy packing. There were extra goodies that were handed out for everyone and we all started saying goodbye.
I think the muster went pretty smoothly even with the poor weather which Mother Nature just teased us with on Monday as we were leaving with an absolutely beautiful day. The run home went smoothly and thankfully we didn't see too much traffic.
After our return - and my inability to win any prizes at all - my wife took me to ARB and picked out the identical air compressor, the identical ezy deflator and an inflator with gauge. We ordered a 70L Long Ranger auxiliary tank as well - I couldn't believe she did that!
We then went to Ray's Outdoors on Thursday to be confronted by a "All VIPs get 25% off" and decided now was the time to buy the bigger water tanks for the caravan. Not only did we do that, but we bought a GME TX3540 radio (the one with the remote handset) for $350 and a GME 6.6dB broomstick antenna for $150. These were $449 and $249 respectively in ARB - we saved a bundle!
I'm looking forward to the next outing. Many people at the muster said they enjoyed it and I told them I'd change the NSWNOG group name (done) and we'd start organising more trips - already planning one for the end of November, so I'll post that up soon.
It was FANTASTIC meeting everyone. I can't wait to do it again!
Gonzo
Member
I'm not much with the camera but here are some !!!
Report !!!! IT WAS GOOD !!!!! Ha ha ha ha
Report !!!! IT WAS GOOD !!!!! Ha ha ha ha
rob was more than welcome in my opinion
he and his family were very nice people
he even won a raffle prize
thankfully he owned the right brand of car
K
KraftyPg
Guest
Now there is a familiar site, the second pic shows Woody with the bonnet up!
Yeah there was a terrible noise coming from under his bonnet. A loose serpentine belt?? I did asked but he said it was all good!!
justdrinkbeer
Member
Too tired & too upset about england losing to france in the QF (rugby world cup) to read everything.
Seems like everyone had a good time, wish I could have been there but my daughter had to have her first birthday on the 1st of october!
Oh, whats the story with the 550? Just shit off road?
Seems like everyone had a good time, wish I could have been there but my daughter had to have her first birthday on the 1st of october!
Oh, whats the story with the 550? Just shit off road?
LLadnar
Member
Well! it was stock and road tyres. I think they have tried too over complicate things too make it sound more impresive. but I think there no need. The standard STX LSD diff would have been fine.
With a good set of tyres and all that torque it could almost go anywhere, then replace that stupid diff with a Elocker, plus a lift kit and it would be an awesome ute.
Nissan have made a great ute then spoiled it by over thinking.
Great pics, Gonzo. It's not a matter of technique, mate, it's a matter of opportunity. And you took advantage of a couple of good ones, great to see!
I took the 550 off road for a quiet test run (this was before the heavens opened with the rain), and it handled the job very nicely indeed. Seemed very sure footed.
Its only downfalls was the road tyres, stock suspension and obviously the side steps.
With those three things being reticified, i'd have loved to take it back up the tracks even in the wet conditions to really test it - and I tent to think it would have come up with the goods and got me all over the ADOS tracks.
But with the stock condition of the 550, the rain, and respect of our sponsor NISSAN, the committee decided the risk of damage to the vehicle to great to take it off road for the whole weekend.
justdrinkbeer
Member
Well thats good news, had mine off road mildly once and wasn't impressed, lots word than the KC, amazing what difference a set of tyres & a mild lift does!
Tough dog kit from the KC going in this week, followed by a set of muddies on the 17in rims I got on ebay as soon as I get paid by someone, then will test it out again.
FatBoy89
senior member
- Joined
- May 23, 2011
- Messages
- 4,742
- Reaction score
- 0
justdrinkbeer said:Well thats good news, had mine off road mildly once and wasn't impressed, lots word than the KC, amazing what difference a set of tyres & a mild lift does!
Tough dog kit from the KC going in this week, followed by a set of muddies on the 17in rims I got on ebay as soon as I get paid by someone, then will test it out again.
And where might you be testing these additions?
Gonzo
Member
Nothin wrong with road tyres ! They didn't stop the D22 
Nothin wrong with road tyres ! They didn't stop the D22
correct tyre pressure helps
i was running 20psi at the muster and didnt get stuck
but when the factory tyres are worn i will go to a better more agressive tyre
maybe cooper st or bf goodrich at's
not going muddies as i do a fair bit of beach work
Nothin wrong with road tyres ! They didn't stop the D22
gonzo ... must have been the made qld'r driving it that made all the difference then.
I have done most of my sand driving with BFG all terrains 31", and i only let them down to 25psi for most of that. But that was when the car was probably half a ton lighter too.
D
Dave
Guest
D
Dave
Guest
Similar threads
