Snow Trip
With the soaring cost of accommodation pricing us out of Woods Point and the fact that more people wanted to go, this year the venue chosen was The Hayter’s Numeralla Lodge in Glenmaggie. The idea was to travel to Mt Skeene and this year we found heaps more snow!
FRIDAY morning saw us leave and head for a McBreakfast, eat in style, while Lachlan played in the playground before meeting up with the Hayters. Within about 15 minutes the phone rang and it was Rob chasing a winch motor. Stewie had a spare, so back home to get it and we were rolling again. We met Rob and Danni at the Moe servo to deliver the goods, before starting the final leg of our journey.
We arrived about 1:00pm, unpacked the cars and got all the tasks done, so all that was left was to rest. Stewie went for a ride, the girls went for a walk, while Lachlan and I stayed back and hand-pumped 44 gallons of diesel into the tank and lit both fires. A few quiet ales were enjoyed, along with a roast, while we waited for the others to arrive. By about 9:30 all had arrived, got their stuff sorted and most were in bed early eager for what lay ahead.
SATURDAY arrived and some were up early. I was anyway with Lachlan at 7:00. We got our breakfast organized and slowly but surely, people popped up to have breakfast and by 8:30 we were heading out the driveway. I led the troops thru a bit of the motorkhana course where some had some issues climbing out of the hole, but we were soon on our way heading to Mt Selma. This part of the trip seemed to cause no end of travel sickness, with some popping pills to feel better, but as soon as we hit low range everyone felt better.
A descent took us to an easy river crossing with a steep rutted climb up the hill on the other side. It took us about an hour to conquer the hill with some having to winch while others showed us how it should be done, driving it. We were soon at the Licola Rd before we turned and headed to Mt Skeene. This was usually the quiet side of the mountain but this year we bumped into another group with some rather stupid (sorry for being blunt!) driving techniques. As they were stopped I managed to get past 3 of their group but before we could all get past, the other 2 went, leaving our group split. This is where our problems with this group started as they proceeded to show Justin how much trouble 2WD and heaps of snow can get you in. While this was happening Acacia was having dramas, as was Joel, while Kate, kids and I were at the lookout building igloos.
Justin finally arrived after the other group, then we waited for Wally and Trish to arrive before we headed back down with the other group now following. We arrived back at our group, turned everyone around and proceeded back towards South Rd.
All was going well until we encountered another group climbing the road and with 17 cars now behind him, Stewie proceeded to ask the other group to move over as we had a big group. The response was basically “why?” so a few choice words were exchanged and they finally saw it our way. Some of this group had rather strange ways of doing this and I reckon would have had a few dramas getting out. What made this situation even harder was that the group behind us were getting impatient and giving us a hard time. So another lot of choice words were chosen and they calmed down.
What makes this whole situation funny is the fact that both groups were from the same club, both giving our group a hard time, and when the rear group figured out that the group in front were their fellow club members, they changed channel, turned around and left!
As the day was getting on, it was decided to head back with the convoy splitting in two groups; “The Kiddy Klan” headed straight back to camp, while “The Want More!” group followed Shane along some tracks and arrived back at camp about 2 hours later. Pasta was the “special” on the menu, followed by a few beers. Guys outside, gals inside. I’m led to believe the girls hadn’t laughed so much, while the guys had a laugh around the outside fire, before deciding to have a look at the motorkhana course. We (and Bec) packed up into “less drunk” drivers cars and headed off. Let me just say that after popping a tyre in the bog hole, exiting it took longer than expected, so more beers were called for as we recovered Tommy’s stuck 75. All done and all good, we headed back, had another beer and headed to bed.
SUNDAY was a 10:00am start for the motorkhana, so everyone was up with time to have breakfast before we all walked following Bec in the car, around the course. Its funny what a stopwatch does to some as some real fast times were achieved. Trees were moved around and panels bent, but all had a blast! I’d like to thank Stewie, and I’m sure all will agree, for his now-famous motorkhana and look forward to next year.
After the motorkhana, lunch was cooked while everyone performed their set chores and within an hour or so, everything was cleaned up and people started heading for home.
The whole weekend was a hoot and I’d like to thank Stew and Nat for the use of their place and all of you that came for making it another successful and enjoyable VATC Club Trip.
Jason Jones