Pulling into the carpark at 8:30 Dean and his dog were already there, dean was sitting down sipping on a coffee when he spotted us and waved us down. The rest of the group caught up shortly after and Phil and his daughter Maddy’ turned up not long after that. I was beginning to feel a little inadequate especially with Phil’s Disco2a parked next to mine which had all the running gear whilst mine was factory with barely legal road tyres.

After a chat and some much needed (especially for slightly hung-over Cath) egg bacon muffins from the café in the servo we made our way into Cobaw State Forest, Dean had been out this way 6 months or so ago and was the trip leader for our little trip.



We stopped to drop tyre pressures to around 24psi, not that this makes much difference with my lower profile tyres, they just don’t have the sidewall height (55 profile) to offer much deformation with the lower tyre pressures. It was about this time I spotted the “L” plates on Phils D2, Maddy was driving whilst Phil was chauffeured, how cool is that!



The first track was a good warm up pretty and little over grown adding to the bush pinstripes, with a few ruts and down hills to contend with, Dean was up front followed by Darren in his Pathfinder followed by me, Stevo behind me in his D1, followed by Phil in the 80 series and finally Phil in the D2a. My reasoning was if the Pathfinder could make it then I sure as hell I should be able to and failing that, I had Stevo behind me to pull me out if need be.



After a short while we came across what was initially to be the major challenge for the day, Dean made his way up first and via the UHF informed us it wasn’t to bad, Darren proceeded next and made it up with little drama, time for our turn, half way up I came to a halt with wheel spin. Once again due to lack of diff clearance and without a centre diff lock, the lack of these 2 items were haunting me once again and after a 2nd attempt I rolled back and used more right foot and we were right from then on.



After a while of exploring the tracks we came upon a bog hole, checking the depth it seemed to be not much more than 700mm deep with a soft base which firmed up an inch or so down, it seemed straight forward enough and Dean was first to make his way for it. It seemed such a straight forward affair that when he entered and got stuck we were all a little slow reacting, in our minds we had not prepared for the fact that he wouldn’t make it through.

In retrospect what appears to have happened was, as Dean came down into the bog hole the centre rut was much larger than we anticipated and his diff centre just got hung up on it stopping the tyres from gaining any purchase.



After more exploring we came upon another hole, this one far smaller than the previous and after the Pathfinder made its way through I followed, with a little to much “gusto” as Dean so elegantly put it (i was concerned about getting stuck) I exited a little fast with muddy water over the bonnet and a number plate barely hanging by 1 screw. I also later noticed the mesh in the bottom of the bumper had been pushed hard by the force of the water and the bottom clips had broken off which holds it in place.



Shortly there after we stopped for lunch, we used Stevo’s ever present BBQ and Maddy graciously gave piggy back rides to Caitlin, whilst the smell of the cooking food brought the flies out in force, thank goodness I had packed the Aeroguard. Whilst my girls were having a ball climbing up and down rocks and tree stumps Darren had to leave having an afternoon shift to work, saying his goodbyes he hit the road.



After lunch we made our way to have a look at what was to be the really tricky track Dean had been saving to show us, after walking it and after much discussion the verdict was that it wasn’t to bad, the biggest obstacle would be the lack of clearance. Dean with Diff locks engaged walked up it next Stevo had a go and after changing his line he made it up also, Peter and Phil also followed. After a little mocking from the rest I decided to give it a miss and turn around to join them further up the track.

Heading into late afternoon and at about this point the girls were beginning to get tired and cranky, we decided to call it a day and say our goodbyes and make our way home whilst the rest continued investigating a few more tracks.