Brindabella National Park
15th & 16th September 2007

Written by Dean Hagan

This weekend was set down for Fred’s Advance Driver Training but nobody had booked and it was a phone call from Herve late in the week suggesting a trip be organised to compensate, why stay at home when you can go 4x4ing.

Four blokes and three Landy’s later our group meet at Pheasant Nest service station, south bound for the Australian Capitol.
It was an easy run down the highway only stopping for a quick refuel and bite to eat. It had been a couple of years since I was down this way and it was good to see dams full and the hill side green.

We stopped at Uriarra Crossing to check maps and GPS settings and to plot the course for the day. There were dozens of tracks to check out but the forestry tracks we travelled were in stark contrast to those farming hillsides, once there were tall pines but after the severe bush fire a few years back the mountain side was almost bare. Herve led us through some wonderful regeneration forests where trees were starting to come alive again after those dreadful fires. Some of the tracks on the maps had them marked as thoroughfare trails but some turned out to be closed by large fallen trees.

By mid afternoon we had made our way down to McIntyre Hut . It was a steep decent into the valley but easy enough for three Landy’s to negotiate. It’s been know to be a very difficult drive out if rain was to fall but there was no chance of that happening. We checked out the river which in summer would be great for li-loing or canoeing down and decided that this was as good a camping spot as any and got a fire going and sat around talking about whatever four blokes talk about.
Fred amazed us with his cooking skills, none of us had ever seen him cook, Ros always had that task. (Ros you’d be very proud how quickly he learnt ‘cos we weren’t going to cook for him) The hut has a couple of bunks so John and I grabbed one each while Herve and Fred slept in their vehicles.

The convoy (all three of us) climbed the steep climb where the day before we had come down, halfway up Fred called over the CB he had a loose box in the back of his vehicle. Fred being Fred stopped on a slope opened the back door and wham!! That box and it contents were all over the ground rolling down the hill we had just come up. What a sight!!

We followed a track that led us onto a flat area perfect for camping, there was a river crossing but a sign saying no entry had us turning around and looking at the maps again. Lunch at Uriarra Crossing and then back onto the Federal Highway via the outskirts of Canberra. Herve had to get back into Sydney for a prior appointment but 9km up the road we still had him in CB range not bad.

The only causalities, I discovered a broken fuel line that must have broken a couple of km from home as fuel was just starting to find it’s way down the fuel tank, it was taken to the mechanic the next day for repair.

From the three of us Herve, thanks for leading the trip thanks for everyone’s company and thanks you lot for dobbing me in to write the trip report AGAIN!!