Tallarook Hard 2007

I can hear you saying “not another Tallarook Trip Report – what could they possibly have to say now?”. Normally, I’d agree with you if it were a run-of-the-mill type trip, but not on this occasion (or any other occasion for that matter). We may have had only four vehicles in total, but let me assure you, it was no average trip! We had a ‘swinging’ and ‘rock n roll’ type of day (get it fellas?)!!

On the Trip were Mark ‘Pajman’ Andrews as Tail End Charlie, Milton ‘The Rev’ Oliver, Henk ‘Twinkle Toes’ Piper and of course yours truly, ‘Brumby’, as trusty Trip Leader.

The day greeted us with very wet and drizzly conditions at the meeting point. I always tell members that we’ll have nice weather once we get past the Great Divide, but I was wrong on this occasion. The conditions continued into Tallarook Forest and made for what was going to be a very slippery day—the only way to handle hard tracks of course!

Having aired down, we set off for some slippery adventure. No hiccups north of Main Road, but when we reached south side of Main Road, everything changed! The opening track is one of the three hard-rated tracks on this trip. It is a very steep and deeply rutted link from Brandy Track down to Brandy Corner Road/Teehan No. 2 Track. The first part of the link sees us slip-sliding on a steepish decline to a sharp right hand corner in the track. Talk about inching your way down—literally! You had to have your wits (and experience) about you, and know how to use your brakes so as not to lock up the wheels on the slippery clay mud and start on a possible irreversible and uncontrollable slide towards a very large tree down on the corner. Getting to the right hand corner then sees you starting to descend very steeply in deep muddy and rocky ruts with door high embankments on either side down to the bottom. We literally inched our way down.

After I got down the very steep link, it was Henk Piper’s turn. He soon understood what I meant about slipping. When they reached the bottom, I’m pretty sure I heard Henk’s wife Michelle ask him where their toilet paper was, and Henk responding with “you can wait, I’m first”. Next up was Milton in his unstoppable GU ARB Patrol. With Milton’s extensive experience and background in four wheel driving and being Chairman of the Driver Training Unit of FWDV, he lost control and crash rolled his truck all the way down – ha, ha, just kidding, of course. Milton made it down quite nicely like the legend he is. Lastly, it was Mark in his trusty Pajero.

Unfortunately, Mark’s Pajero is not as high as the full size Cruisers and Patrols, so with the deep ruts, he was crash-banging underneath pretty much all the way down.

However, half way down the very steep section, the Pajero slipped into the centre rut and with the driver’s side wheel heading for the embankment this nearly saw him flipping his truck over rear to front. It all happened within seconds and a quick stop, prevented the posible end-over-end flip (see main pic.).  The Paj’s driver’s side rear looked high off the ground from where we were and it looked like it was slowly listing to port. So up on foot I went climbing the track to get to Mark with Milton and Henk in tow (it was the other way ‘round, actually—Ed.). It was so slippery, we all slipped over several times getting up. Getting there revealed the Pajero’s rear was very high off the ground—well over a metre. Quick but careful thinking was the order of the day, as an urgent way had to be found to bring the rear end down as much as possible before we could attempt further recovery action. Henk brought up with him a snatch strap and a winch extension strap. We realised at the time that it would have been great to have a hand winch, but you can’t have everything all the time. Thinking of the hand winch saw Milton attaching the snatch strap to the tow bar, Henk wrapping the winch extension strap around a tree way up on the hill (more slipping over) and me looping the winch extension strap through the snatch strap and back up to the tree. From here, we used the tree like a snatch block and all three of us manually got hold of the winch extension strap and heaved like there was no tomorrow with our body weight. Because the three of us together weighed more than Milton’s Patrol, the idea worked. We were able to reduce the angle of Mark’s rear end (the Paj’s) quite nicely, but not enough to continue any other recovery work yet. The idea then was to keep Henk and I on the winch extension strap and Milton climb down to Mark. We then had Mark reverse slowly and Henk and I pull on the strap at the same time. This brought the Paj’s rear down even further – yippee! Milton then got Mark’s shovel and he starting digging away at the embankment where the driver’s wheel sat high out of the rut. This soon allowed the front right wheel to drop into the rut as he inched forward, turning slowly. He eventually slipped back into the ruts safely. But before Milton could dig away, we had to secure the vehilce from slipping forward too hard, thus we needed to loop the strap completely around the tree instead of keeping it half way on. As I was at the end of the strap, I put all my weight behind it whilst Henk let go and I proceeded to do a bungee swing with the strap on the steep slope. It should have been an abseiling exercise. This meant I would run down the hill and with the force of the run this should swing me back up the other side of the hill and around the back of the tree thus looping the strap. The idea was great, but the execution was nothing short of George of the Jungle style. I tripped with the first few steps and crash-rolled my body over and over down the hill and half way up again! I hit everything from fallen tree limbs to rocks, not to mention the crater-sized dents my body left in the ground in several places. I’m pretty sure I even squashed a wombat beyond recognition. Whilst I was in rolling motion, Milton thought I was goofing off and was not amused because this was a serious recovery situation. It wasn’t until he saw me come to a stop and hanging off the Strap with body fully outstretched and moaning, that he realised I wasn’t. From serious, Milton THEN suddenly started to laugh uncontrollably at me! Thanks mate! Mark looked on in amusement, so I asked him how much he loved me. When he saw that all it would take is for me to let go of the strap and his truck would also let go and go crashing down the track, he professed his undying love for me! Henk was the only one who was truly concerned for me and made his way down to my body and took hold of the strap whilst keeping tension on it. For some time after that, I was for some unknown reason unable to bring my arms down from the arrest position – just kidding, but I seriously could have dislocated either shoulder with my weight! (He dislocated a few big trees, though! - Ed.)

Milton dug away at the embankment and slowly, but surely Mark’s Pajero inched forward with Henk and I loosening the strap simultaneously and his truck was back in the ruts—and level again. Henk and I let go at this point and disconnected the straps from Mark’s vehicle.

Mark then proceeded on down safely to the bottom. Milton, Henk and I then began the arduous task of getting down the track, slipping over several times again in the process. Down the bottom, Milton and the rest of the crew couldn’t help but sing to me “George of the Jungle” - and for the rest of the day, and laughing hard every time they pictured me swinging down the hill.

Having gotten through all that, it was time for lunch, so we stopped at a clearing on Brandy Corner Road and mused over the recovery that just took place. Instead of meaningful discussion about the recovery techniques, it was all about “George of the Jungle” doing an unintended bungee swing – thanks guys!

On account of the time involved in recovering Mark’s vehicle, I had to abandon several tracks that would have led us to the second unnamed hard-track, which I call ‘Petrol Tank Track’ because I punctured my petrol tank on this track about two and half years ago. After lunch, we went straight to this track, which is another steep descent, but with a lot of sharp slate rock and loose shale rocks. This was negotiated well by all with no hiccups. Getting out of this track and back onto Teehan No. 2 Track where it exits, is not so easy in the wet. There’s quite a steep ascent on loose clay mud. You have to make a very sharp left hand turn into it at the base (for some it takes a two-point turn), but without much room to back up in to get a good run up. Milton, Henk and I made it up quite well, but Mark just couldn’t get enough momentum to get up the slippery clay. After several attempts, he had no choice, but to winch up. A double-line pull saw Mark up and over in no time.

From Petrol Tank Track, we made our way around to Teehans No. 3 Track, down the steep rutted link to Teehans No.4 Track, climb steeply up Teehans No. 5 Track and back onto Horan Road. Once again looking at the time, I decided to abandon some more tracks so we could get to the last hard track of the day for some fun.

So, off we went up Rocky Track and up to the transmission towers on Mt Hickey for a quick coffee break. Here is where you find the entrance to the famous Phone Track – not for the fainthearted. Whilst having coffee on Mt Hickey, we saw what looked like serious rain heading our way from the Great Divide, so we scoffed our drinks down and moved on down to the hair raising section of Phone Track. As has been reported many times before, this track has very large boulders and serious step downs as you descend it from the top. Absolutely careful wheel placement and full guidance is a must when tackling this track. We all went down fine, except for Henk who got hung up on his front diff and had to be winched back up by Milton. Following this, Henk made it down nicely. As we walked off to our vehicles, Milton slipped and landed on his knee. I started to laugh hard and loud just to make up for his humorous attacks on me earlier in the day, when I realised he wasn’t getting up and he certainly wasn’t laughing, either. He’d jarred his knee quite hard and was in a bit of pain—but he was basically OK. We all jumped in our trucks and after confirming everyone was ready to go, I took off and within a split second of doing that, the rear end of my truck suddenly and violently fishtailed sideways to the left. I heard Henk yell out over the UHF “stop Brumby, stop”. When I stopped, I responded over the UHF “what was that” or words to that effect, if you know what I mean. Henk replies “you’ve caught a huge rock under your truck in front of your driver’s side rear wheel, you’re not going anywhere”. Sure enough, it was my turn to be rescued having been recovery-free up until this point. Everyone gathered around and couldn’t believe the size of this rock. I could see it in my convection mirror, but it didn’t look all that big. Well, after about 20 minutes, I opened my door and I couldn’t believe my eyes. This thing was huge alright! It was about one metre in length and about 60cms deep and wide and jammed up hard against my tyre and pushing in towards the wheel rim. The question wasn’t how did that get there? It was where did it come from in the first place??? I was parked and clear of everything (obviously, not.—Ed.). It was unexplainable, but resulted in 45 minutes of recovery effort. Everything from digging away at the base of the rock, chipping the rock, high-lift jacking my rear end, tying a rope around the rock then using a tree as a pulley to try and heave the rock from under my truck, and deflating my tyre to 10psi. What an effort this rock took, but we achieved it and made our way down to the air up point. Each and every time Tallarook is on, it produces something different for everyone. So, if you’re after adventure and honing your 4WD skills, come along and give it a go some time. There’s a trip to Tallarook almost every month of the year. Thanks to all for the great teamwork—it was a great adventure! - “Brumby”