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WOMBAT MEET 'n'
GREET
Story By Club President -
Milton Oliver - August '04
It was cold. It was windy. It was wet. It was muddy. But it was
a lot of fun! In all, nine vehicles turned up at the now
traditional Carroll’s Lane meeting spot on the way in to the Wombat
Forest to register, hand over emergency envelopes, air-down and get
organised for the July “Meet and Greet”. Especially invited to the
“Meet and Greet” were new members who’d recently signed up at
CITYWEST—and some of these had already completed their Driver
Proficiency training. It was going to be a fun day—everyone
was brimming with excitement—or were they just shivering?
Hmmmmm!
A “Meet and Greet” is a low key affair, with the emphasis on,
well, meeting and greeting members you may not have met before, and
having fun together. Anyone can come on a meet and greet, the
tracks chosen for such a day are social to easy in
category—nothing extreme, but still plenty of challenges.
Many of the tracks in the Wombat were by now seasonally closed, and
during the course of the day we would come across another half
dozen that were closed but were not noted on the DSE website for
weeks afterward. This is pretty poor form and bad public relations.
Still, this does not seem to bother DSE in the slightest. Trekking
the Wombat we soon found more water in it and over tracks than I
had seen in six years. A good sign for the forest, itself, and for
our catchments. There was a lot of water lying around and in some
cases, far too deep on well-used tracks for even big and
well-equipped trucks to take on. Did this bother us? No!
You can still have a lot of fun on a meet and greet with nine
trucks!
We got underway, checked radios were functioning OK and on the
right channels. Forward, ho! We soon came to the first track we’d
planned to travel, the little travelled “Creek” track (unmarked) -
it was closed. So, being the innovative trip leader that I am, we
pressed on and found several other unmarked tracks to the north,
off Firth Road (but before Saltwater Road), and prepared to tackle
these. As I said, there was a lot of water laying around and some
puddles were very deep. The first rule of thumb in taking on any
obstacle is, “Do I REALLY need to go there?”. Well, we didn’t need
to go splashing through the first big puddle we saw, and with some
vehicles pretty much standard, we decided to check the water depth
and ensure every vehicle could get through safely and sensibly.
With help from “Budgie” and Geoff Freiberg, we grabbed long sticks
and checked water depth to plot a course. All vehicles made it
through with a minimum of effort—which is always good
driving, and caring for the environment.
Our tail-end Charlie for the day was Jason Duncan, who had also
brought along a friend for the day in a 40 series Toyota SWB (if I
remember correctly). Well, Jason, being Jason, and just having got
his vehicle back from our mates at Total 4WD in Epping after a
spring-over conversion that took absolutely ages, and here there
being heaps of water, he just had to go for a swim. The snazzy blue
70 series MWB started confidently, and then as Jason hit the
water’s edge, the nose of the vehicle disappeared—and dropped
out of sight beneath the waves! Undeterred he pressed on and
managed to keep his revs up to eventually emerge on the other
shore—yep! ‘shore’, that’s how big the hole was. A lesser
vehicle would have drowned for sure. It was the one bit of licence
we allowed our tail-end Charlie that day, as we had a serious job
to do—making sure all participants had fun and did not come
to grief doing so.
 We trekked through this area
for the rest of the morning, finding some fun places to test our
skills. There were one or two large bogs that we avoided—no
vehicle would have made it. No way. Later on as we were carefully
negotiating a slippery section of track, one vehicle at a time,
under radio guidance, we heard some kind of uproar as another group
of vehicles came to grief in the big bog hole we elected to detour
around. It took a long time for them to free their stuck vehicle,
and as we passed by again, later on, they were still at it. Stupid!
A waste of a day doing that sort of stuff. We stopped for morning
tea at a fork in the track—both routes rejoined the main
track about 150 metres further on, but neither were passable. The
left fork was blocked by a huge fallen tree, and the right fork was
covered in the deepest, longest stretch of water I had ever seen in
the Wombat. And that’s saying something. No vehicle would have got
more than ten metres. Like I said, there was a lot of water in the
Wombat after the steady and very welcome rains. We about-faced and
cracked open the thermos for morning tea, and shared experiences of
some of the obstacles we’d just faced. Ain’t this the best fun?
We backtracked to Firth Road and set up the BBQ at Firth Park
for lunch. Unfortunately, young Tom Buttigeig slipped in mud and
fell heavily on his lower back onto a small but exposed tree stump,
a few centimetres above ground level. After some first aid and some
ice, Tony (Dad) decided to get him home, the wisest thing to do.
(Tony called us later to say that Tom was sore, but fine. That was
good news.). Tom had thoroughly enjoyed being Dad’s radio
man—and he did a great job, too! We packed up after lunch
deciding to head down to Digger Track and then on to Upper Chadwick
Track—as we’d discovered more closed tracks that are not
normally subject to seasonal closure and again had to reconfigure
our plans on the fly. We also dropped by the old mining ruins, such
as they are, at the upper corner of Upper Chadwick track. We had
afternoon there, and were disgusted to see the garbage left behind.
Next time we’ll have garbage bags and will take it out with us.
Light was beginning to fade, and, on the spur, I asked Ian
Stuart if there were any geocache locations hereabouts. Sure
enough, there was one just the other side of O’Brien’s Crossing. We
all agreed to make this the last bit of fun for the day. We got to
O’Brien’s Crossing and were surprised at the water level—way
more than I’ve ever seen in six years, high and running swiftly,
too! Ian’s GPS said that the geocache was several hundred metres
ahead, and so we got to a bend in the road, parked, and went
hunting. One of Jason’s visitors soon found it after some educated
guesswork. We filled in the log book, replaced the container, and
headed back to the road, where we aired up and made for home. “Meet
and greet” days are filled with fun, and a bit of everything
including spur of the moment adventure.
Join us next time!
- Milton Oliver (#001)
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