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Shunt's Hard Trip in
Cobaw
by Robert (Bullet) Lake
(#039)
Well when I heard that Shunt was organising a trip to Cobaw it
was a trip that I didn’t want to miss. I knew Dad had been waiting
for this for quite some time, I thought that this was a chance to
scam a ride off him and save some of my own petrol!! This had been
planned as a ‘hard trip’ so I knew that from previous trips we had
found some tracks that Shunt had wanted to come back and do, this
was going to be the time. There is always a track that you come
across on a trip that is said to be ‘a good one for next
time’ well hopefully this was going to be a trip of next time
tracks and I had seen two of them before, reason to be excited.
We met at the usual postal head quarters in Lancefield where we
normally meet and everyone was excited ready for some challenging
tracks. We had the usual talk of what’s new on my car, what’s new
on your car and geee I cant wait to get one of those but need to
save a little more money yet.
We filled in registrations had a quick explanation of what to
expect, Shunt didn’t give up too much and then we were off to air
down at Croziers Rd and to our first track which is right near the
Motor Bike unloading area and it goes straight up. Might be called
Ridge track, but shunt may want to keep it a secret for his next
trip. It is a long rutted out climb with some big rocks and many
different lines. After walking the track we decided that it would
be better for us to come down this track later in the day but
before we did Brad just had to have a crack at it which he did with
relative ease. We then moved onto another track that looked a lot
more interesting, it was a long track that goes straight up, a
photo does nothing for this track, you have to stand at the bottom
of it to get a true feel for its angle and height. Shunt had gone
up this before, a few months back when the forest was a lot
wetter.
His first attempt; he had some track building to do and it was
very slippery but he did make it, on his second he gave a
demonstration of how fast not to go up it, how to do it on 3
wheels, and how to change a tyre, but he got everyone up there
safely and that is the sign of a great trip leader. It was to be
the start of a bumpy ride for the day. I thought it would be
interesting to go up with Shunt and it was. It was a fairly fast
easy first section above the ruts, and then we hit the rocky
section with a massive spurt of air blasting out the back, air bag
was the first thought but we kept going as we couldn’t stop half
way, the car was bouncing from side to side, and up and down but we
made it only to discover a flat Cooper at the top of the hill. It
was great to experience the effort that it sometimes takes to make
a hard section, the concentration, staying in control and laughing
all that way while this is all going on. I’m sure third time he
will have it nailed with out any dramas.
Chris Knight had a hairy experience getting up the first section
with some good wheel in the air action and some not so comfortable
angles happening. After having lunch he again tackled it and made
it up easy. Everyone made it up the steep hill with some great
directing and use of the ruts.
We moved along down Stumpy Track, Soil Pit track, Reillys Rd,
back into Crosiers track, Evans Track, and McKinley Track.
Along the way we encountered many different driving conditions,
small bog holes, some climbs, some narrow tracks and some rock
ledges. One small section crossed over a dry creek bed that had
some larger rocks sticking out, some good wheel off the ground
action from a few trucks, but everyone once again got down
smoothly. I remember coming up this track when we first joined the
club and Dad had just bought his Mav, it was the first challenging
track I did so it was great to go back there. I remember walking it
with John Parish and deciding where to go. There is a nice piece of
footage of Ivan getting the front wheel off the ground.
After negotiating this section I jumped back in with Shunt just
to see what goes on in this Mystery Machine full of gadgets and
devices. Just to get me warmed up again Shunt slipped into this
little rut and my head got smashed against the passenger window so
hard I had an instant headache. Shunt just thought it was funny,
and it probably was from where he was sitting. Once we recovered
from this we were back on our way, leading this convoy of people
laughing when they had found out over the radio what had happened.
Toyota’s you cant trust then, not the smooth ride of the Nissan I
am use to. While Shunt had earlier given a tyre changing
demonstration, and we had been talking about the angle that this
troopy can get with out tipping over, and me mentioning that I was
a little scared at what this thing does in regards to sideways
movement, but Shunt just laughs.
Less that a minute later I am looking at the ground, which seems
like only centimetres away, and when I looked straight up, Shunt
was there. I thought for sure that we were going to tip, and to
start with neither of us moved, I certainly didn’t. Shunt must have
been in this situation before as after a few seconds he was calm
and ready to get the recovery into gear. I was still not moving and
looking to turn the radio dial across just to make sure everything
was pointing up and less chance to tip. At this stage I was looking
for anything. Once everyone else came up to have a laugh, I mean a
look. I was able to get out and it took me about half a second to
get out of there. Brad got the winch out and pulled him to safety.
No harm done except to my pants. I made a decision there and then,
a Troopy was not for me, but great fun for a ride in, I will be
back if he lets me. It was back to the Mav to calm down for a few
minutes.
We made it back to our first track and were ready for our
decent. I went down with Shunt (I had recovered by this stage), it
was good to see the things Shunt goes through while preparing to
tackle a harder track, it made me think about my thought process
and what I do. We negotiated it well to the bottom and then walked
back up the track to watch everyone else come down, and help them
out. I thought how lucky I was to have survived so far with a few
interesting events during the trip. I thought I was safe from here
on in all we had left to do was air up about 30 seconds from where
we were and to head off home. But I was wrong!
Dean came down well, Ivan came down smoothly, and with a giant
gust of wind so did a big tree right next to us. All shunt and I
heard was a big crack from above (about 20m above) and then this
big branch just shattered on the ground right next to us. Not very
comforting (and it was then I knew I had definitely damaged my
pants) so we moved to where there was a little more shelter. Ivan’s
car came within about five seconds of it landing on him; he had
just passed under that section, not sure if he knows that this had
happened.
After this we had to air up and make our way back home, another
great CITYWEST trip and another fantastic trip run by Shunt into
one of his favourite spots.
Thanks again Shunt, and Dad for the lift.
Robert
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