AWABA - Tuff Trip
30th October 2005

Written by Chris Gilpin

A spot of light rain was falling as we washed the dog before setting off on the tuff trip last Sunday, not enough though to put me off a nice day in the woods.

By the time I had reached the freeway however I had to put the wipers on double speed and was starting to have a small steam up problem (any range rover owner without aircon should know what I’m talking about). Sitting on Mandalong road waiting for the arrival of the Sydney group to arrive I began to wonder if they had called the whole thing off when I finally managed to hail them on the UHF.
The decision had been made to press on North to Awaba as Slippery Rock Road was deemed to difficult for the torrential rain.

As we pulled up at a servo to discuss the plan we discovered a small blessing in the form of a covered area to air down, first though the question was asked if we really wanted to do this??? Of course nobody wanted to be the party pooper and the trip was on.
Most of us were cautious with the pressure drop as nobody wanted to be reseating tyres in the dirt in these conditions.

After a few twists and turns in the bush we found our first serious obstacle (it’s always worrying for the rest of us if Max gets stuck).
The new addition to our ranks Geordie had already skirted this section and with a little tug out came Max. OK Simons turn, also on 35’s he ended up with four tyres stirring the waters as his auto discovery idled away going nowhere. Damien and I had pretty much decided that this was a hopeless case by now but, after all, why not so whilst Damien planted his land cruiser in the mud I attached a tarp and a snatch strap to the front of the rangie as the day was looking like it might be that way.

Sure enough 7.50’s won’t go where 35” Simex have failed and so everybody by now was a little dirtier than when we started, Especially Max who came really close to needing a full change of clothes as he slid off the bonnet whilst attaching his snatch.

By this time I had more water on the inside of my screen than the outside. Removing my glasses to get rid of a couple of layers of condensation we carried on.

One tricky section saw Simon come close to slipping into a deep rut, seeing this I kept all the way over to the other side and promptly slipped in. After a few attempts to extricate myself I called Damien back to help. Of course with a bit more throttle I then popped right out just in time for Damien to have to turn around again and carry on as I squeezed between some very tight trees. Shortly after this the usually unstoppable Simon once again became lodged in a rut which refused to be straddled. After lifting a dead log to temporarily tip it out of the way Simon was through leaving me to make a small adjustment to my rear passenger side with the aforementioned log.

One more of these big bog holes and we were at the final test, some rock steps. Max made reasonably short work of them and next up was Geordie, with a little road building at the first hurdle he was through. Not bad for a double locked disco on 32” tyres.

Things didn’t go so well for Simon who spun some rocks up into his rear wheel well on the disco 2 as he did some acrobatics at the first step. On Closer inspection this had caused a diesel leak. What seemed to be a filter had been bent enough to cause the sensor on the bottom of it to not seal properly, luckily the plastic unit had not cracked. After a little trial and error with plumbers ptfe tape and some more head scratching the solution was found in the form of a rubber washer from Damien’s tool kit. Not too long after and some winching on my part we were at the top having lunch.

After lunch we set off again to find that there was actually one more rock step to get over before finishing this track. Luckily things were drier now and so things went a little smoother except, that is, for me as the chicken track didn’t work out for me.

I backed down to try the other way and got up on the second attempt feeling quite proud of myself.

But oops the second ding of the day had also gone to me in the form of a little tap to the rear roof.

At this point the day seemed nearly over so we opted for just a quick trip up another hill to round things off. Geordie had vouched for the route and it was indeed quite steep with some pretty severe drop off in places. About halfway up Max, now third in the ranks managed to slip off the line and get a wheel in a hole. Sensibly he opted for letting his tyres down a little and so we waited at the bottom for him to have another go.

When he did the result was really quite dramatic. The hole was not letting go of his rear wheel as his front end slid around to the side breaking the seal on the bead of the passenger side front tyre as it did so. Thus with a little more winching and some bush tyre fitting we ended the day slipping down the hill with the rain once again coming down in buckets.

Here are some more moments worthy of Pictorial evidence.

Max testing the articulation of Defender suspensions.

Sorry Damien I didn’t mean what I said about Landcruisers!

Thanks to Max Pegler for organizing it and to everyone else for being daft enough to come along.