Friday 30th October.
We had hoped to leave work just after 2pm, however didn’t make it out until just before 3pm, right on absolute shit fight Sydney traffic time. We decided to head straight down the across the tunnel and straight down the ED to the M5 to Canberra. Wrong move…. the traffic was just horrible. It took us well over an hour to get the start of the M5, then we struck more traffic the further we headed south. Finally, well after Campbelltown we had clear road in front of us.
We arrived in Canberra by just after 7.10pm and negotiated our way through the outskirts of the city to reach the start of Brindabella Road, the time being just before 8pm. It was tarred road for a while, then turned into dirt and stupidly we didn’t stop to air out the tyres.
Was dark enough now to have the spotties on, which all adds to the adventure as well. We stayed on Brindabella Road for a while, having to once slam on the brakes to avoid a rather large wombat crossing the road, before taking the turn off onto Gentle Annie F/T…which should actually be called UNGentle Annie F/T. Was very steep in sections, although because it was dark, you kind of loose prospective on actually how steep it is, so it will be interesting when we leave in the daylight.
Arriving at Flea Creek campground at 9.10pm, having done 330kms since leaving Sydney. It wasn’t a very inviting campground, quite hilly in places and just horrible really. We decided to make the push onto McIntyre Hut campground instead. Hmmmmmmm. Turning onto Webb’s Ridge F/T, the track just seemed to go up and up with erosion mound after erosion mound…we actually struggled to get over one or two of them as well. I was the ‘diff lock’ operator, turning them on and off constantly during both ascents and descents.
We were making our way up one steep section when we heard an awful noise from the back…one of the straps, holding the back of the bike had actually snapped, causing the bike to slide off the side of the camper trailer, and as we were heading over an erosion mound at the time, we couldn’t’ really stop. It was dragged a short way, then we pulled up and surveyed the damage. It was in an awkward position, as only the back strap had snapped, so the bike was off the camper trailer, but the front straps were still intact. The brake handle had snapped off, and there were numerous scratches but that was about it…lucky really. Together we managed to get the bike back on and strap it down, before heading off again.
We turned off onto Waterfall F/T and after a very long and very steep descent we finally made it to McIntyre Campground just after 11pm, taking us two hours to travel only 20kms, take maybe 30 mins to sort out the bike.
There were some young guys here, who promptly left their campfire to come and introduce themselves and have a chat. We then headed off to find a spot, which took a few drive arounds…finally settling on a spot. We were set up and in bed after 8 hours on the road, doing only 350kms in total, by 12.15am…was a long and very adventurous afternoon…..although didn’t stop there, I was in bed, looked up, into the many eyes of a rather large huntsman…I don’t do spiders. It had to go! It went with some help. Only then, could we relax and discuss our afternoon before both falling asleep.
Saturday 31st October.
Had a great uninterrupted sleep, not getting up until after 9am, due to our late night the night before. Had breakfast and coffees before taking the truck out to head to Mt. Coree.
We headed back the same way we came, noticing just how steep the ascent actually is going to be with the camper trailer in tow when we leave…winching and difflocks will be on the cards I think. We headed along Webs Ridge F/T for a while before taking Waterfall F/T, before turning off onto Dingi Dingi F/T. This, we thing will be the way we head home tomorrow, however right at the beginning, there was a very steep section we had to tackle, with numerous switch backs to negotiate as well. We then made our way onto Two Sticks Road which snakes it’s way to the turn off to Mt. Coree.
The track up to the top of Mt. Coree was as rough as guts, very bumpy with rocks over the track, quite a few switch backs, slightly steep, but not as bad as what we had just done. We got to the top and the view was worth it. You could see Canberra way in the distance and you could also see the multitude of tracks that went every which way across the mountain ranges. We stayed up there for a while before another vehicle joined us. We left not long after that, heading back to the campsite.
As we got back to camp it came over rather dark, then started to rain, which is making us both a little nervous as we read a few times that the tracks here become very slippery and muddy when wet, making the ascents even more difficult than what they are going to be already.
We are now just sitting under the annex, Jason reading, me catching up on this and previous stories, watching the rain…lets just hope it doesn’t go on all night!!!
Luckily it stopped raining and Jason managed to get a fire going…including my picket fence! We were having T-Bone steak for dinner cooked over the fire, so glad it did stop raining. We had it with potato and veg. Wasn’t long before I was in bed though, Jason staying up a little longer than myself.
Sunday 1st November.
We didn’t stay in bed for long, because, although it had stopped raining, it was very overcast and we didn’t want to risk not getting out of the camping area. Had breakfast then packed up and just as we had finished it just started to rain…good timing for us! We said goodbye to the other group of campers that were there and headed off up the steep incline to make our way out at exactly 10.20am.
Jason has said now that he thinks it is the steepest incline we have ever done so far on our travels, including the Victorian High Country…and that was steep. He was rather worried we would need to winch ourselves up this very steep section of the track out of McIntyre’s Hut. We followed the same route we had taken the day before to get to Mt. Coree, following McIntyre’s Track, onto Webb’s Ridge F/T, then onto Waterfall Track, before taking Dingi Dingi F/T. We eventually reached Two Sticks Road which took us right out on the tarred road eventually. We followed many a switch back, steep inclines and steep declines to reach this road, which was a welcome relief. Two Sticks Road had turned from 4WD track to hard, deep red, mud track. It was a very long and quite windy road that was very picturesque, following the Powerline F/T at times even overlapping the two tracks.
We headed towards Yass making our way up and across instead of across and up as we had done coming from Canberra, it seemed to be a fair bit quicker this way. We stopped at the large servo, after Jason was pulled over for a breadth test just outside Yass, to pump the tyres back up to the right pressure. We made it on to the Hume Highway and had a great run home, arriving home by just after 5.30pm, even taking the trailer through the car wash to clean some of the dust and mud off, taking us only 6.5 hours to make it home, unlike the 8.5 hours to get there….and it seemed a lot less stressful too. We ended up doing a total of 784km’s over the weekend, most of these were done at a very slow pace!
When we go back, for a longer period, as it was far too a distance to travel for a weekend. We think there was still a lot to see around the area, we just ran out of time and didn’t want to spend even more time in the truck than we already had. We did mention that Bendethera was the best spot to go if you were planning a Victorian High Country trip to get your 4WDriving skills up, but in our opinion the Brindabella Ranges far out weigh Bendethera. The Brindabella Ranges were a mixture of very, very steep inclines and declines, as well as some interesting switch backs, all with numerous erosion mounds thrown in. Go there if you wish to gain some 4WDriving skills.