A total of 8 vehicles had signed on for what was classed as a social weekend playing in the dunes and spending quality time around the camp fire.
Viv and Mark, Kerry and Wal and Lea and Jim arrived on Friday and set up in time to test the conditions for the weekend. We also helped load a few large limbs from a now dead century old tree farmer Darryl had recently cut down into his ute to kick our camp fire along.
Steve and Debbie met visitors Peter and Peggie and friends at Tailem Bend on Saturday morning and guided them into camp.
Along with other arrivals, Ewen and Dee, Gordon and Ida and Harry and Pam, they set up camp and after introductions we all headed out to have some fun.
Steve led us over to the side slopes and dunes while Mark took Peter out for a familiarisation. All was going well until Jim ‘bellied out’ on top of one of the dunes. (I blame Wal, who was in front of me, for chewing the track up to an extent that the poor Prado didn’t have enough clearance to clear the peak!) Never mind – all hands out with shovels to remove the offending lumps and dig the vehicle out and then we were on our way again.
A little later the same fate happened to Wal and Kerry in their Ford Ranger, that they were trying out for the first time – and after more substantial digging they were also free. Luckily there was no damage to their stuffed bee mascot hanging off the front of the vehicle.
Great fun was had by all until late in the day when Mark realised that he had no steering on his Patrol! A broken panhard rod put an end to the day’s driving activities and an early start to happy hour. Mark carefully manoeuvred the Patrol back to camp and immediately disappeared under the front end to see what could be done. A phone call to farmer Darryl to borrow some welding equipment and a trip to the farm shed had the panhard repaired sufficiently and reinstalled for Mark and Viv to cautiously make the trip back to Adelaide on Sunday.
A nice campfire on Saturday night saw a few camp ovens and barbecues appear. Peter, Peggie and friends also cooked up some Asian delights for everyone to taste.
Most went for another drive on Sunday morning (except Mark!) trying out some of the tracks we missed the previous day. All good until Gordon miscalculated a small slope and ended up bogged up against some bushes – another great opportunity to put into practice some of our training! It was decided that a snatch would probably do the job, so after a bit of digging, Steve attempted to pull Gordon out. However it was not possible to obtain a long enough run up for this to work so winching was the next option. After Ewen came to the rescue with his Prado and with some more digging by eager onlookers and coordination by Harry, Gordon’s Prado was finally free.
Lunch and pack up and everyone was on their way after a great weekend – for a social event we certainly managed a lot of training!
Jim