Peake – 2-3 June 2018

Peake, SA Mallee District, 2-3 June 2018

9am sharp, on a cold Saturday morning, was the meeting time for the Peake Experience. The small but excited group consisted of Lynne, Trevor, Barb, Ken & family, Jim, Michele, Peter our trainer and your trip leaders Greg and Maria . All met at the Peake Post Office for what was to be a weekend of digging, winching and a lot of shovelling and hard work!

We all set up camp by 10am and then, after a comprehensive briefing from Greg, Peter lead the way into the sand dunes to explore the many tracks that this beautiful place had to offer.

The soft, somewhat challenging, terrain did not deter any of the drivers and fortunately, or unfortunately (depends on how you want to look at it), we all got the opportunity to test our skills in winching our 4WD’s out of some difficult situations. We also practiced hand digging, using the recovery boards and our shovelling techniques. That said, some of the techniques needed a little tweaking to achieve the desired results.

Exhausted we headed back to camp for a late lunch, then regrouped and followed Greg back into the great unknown…

To my surprise I personally spent more time in the 4WD than on foot (which was unusual for me as I generally dislike any form of 4WD driving). It did help that we decided to do car swapping and I ended up in Barb’s car as a passenger, which was somewhat relaxing. At some point we swapped again and I was being driven around in Trevor’s 4WD and then in a split of a second I was driving his 4WD!

I would have to say that like Peter and Barb, Trevor is a brilliant, patient teacher. His skills at listening and observing are encouraging and make you feel competent at what you are doing. We drove around for a good length of time and then came to a stop, as Peter needed help with one of the cars that had badly sunk into the sand. Needless to say that the car belonged to Greg!

Learning was another aspect of this weekend so it was great to have Peter P, Barb and Trevor Burford provide much needed support and advice as well as signing Greg off on a number of training tasks.

It was then back to camp for afternoon nibbles, drinks and debrief on the days activities. We also had a presentation from Jim to Greg, with the trophy being Greg’s side step, which fell off during the days trekking.

We said our goodbyes to the Burford’s (who only came for the day), had dinner and then gathered around the campfire for some quiet ales which was later followed by a brave walk to our respective beds to freeze!

After a frosty start to a Sunday morning, the ladies decided to stay at camp for some bonding time around the campfire whilst the boys went for a play in the sand.

Around 2pm we were all packed up and ready to go.

Thank you to Michele & Jim, Ken and his amazing family Brooke, Blake, & Thomas, Barb & Trevor, Peter P & Lynne and of course Greg & Maria for an awesome weekend away.

See you all for the next Peake Trip in September. Warm regards, Maria