TRIP FOR UNMODIFIED VEHICLES

This is the first of what hopefully will be regular day trips for unmodified vehicles. The intent for this day trip was for members with unmodified vehicles to experience firsthand the capabilities of their vehicles.

We were fortunate to have a sunny day after several days of rain. With the trip being in the Marysville / Narbethong area, the day was bound to be wet and muddy.

Four of us started in Marysville, with an additional car joining us after lunch. In total, we had three unmodified subies in the group.

We aired down shortly after we left the café in Marysville, before tacking a creek crossing and a slipper hill climb that paralleled the Granton Downhill Mountain Bike Track.

After that we continued onto Anderson Mill Rd, Neds Tk, Granton Rd, before tacking a very wet, slippery and rutted section on Fisher Creek Rd. This section was perfect to demonstrate different line options and why tyre pressure matters!

Whitehill Tk and Telford Rd then took us to lunch at the Black Spur Inn.

Elle Clark joined us at the Black Spur Inn. After a relaxing lunch, we went into the Black Range SF. Given the first part of the drive after lunch involved crossing ~50m of boggy mud, we took the opportunity to go through off-road recovery gear, recovery points on the various vehicles, and the process of recovery. Before we crossed, we walked the terrain and discussing the various line options, checked the depth of the water, checked for immersed obstacles, and gauges the slipperiness of the various line options. After that, we went for it.

Everybody did very well. Rick and I has some fun with some sideways action too.

After playing in mud, it is recommended that one washes the mud off as soon as possible. So that is what we did next with a nice creek crossing (you won’t find this location on most maps). It was

getting late in the day, thus the smart thing to do is to find the easiest way out and not try to attempt a 4pm track. The easiest way out however still involved climbing 70m vertical meters on some reasonably steep and slippery tracks, which everybody in the group did a fantastic job of. We wrapped the day up in Narbethong.

Trip Participants

Daniel Ho (Trip Lead) Daryl Cheshire Mark Gibson Elle Clark Rick Koster

Vehicle

Mitsubishi Pajero XV Forester Outback