JohnA
Forum Member
It's been raining on the slopes in the Central West of NSW, about 4 inches in the past three weeks according to men in big brimmed hats at the Tarana Hotel. Given the numbers, I decided doing the Dingo Dell loop from the Jenolan end was out of the question as the Kowmung would be in spate.
I had a vague fantasy of coming into the Abercrombie National Park from the Arkeville Rd entrance and driving down Bald Hill instead of up (after walking it first) but that didn't seem a good idea after a big wet and following warnings about the climb posted on this site by senior members. I thought valour and discretion ought to preserve their usual stand-offish relationship. Bald Hill will keep.
So on Saturday when bored it was off to the Lowes Mount Forest which could be reliably depended on to challenge me while still remaining within easy walking distance of my neighbour’s houses. I should have known better after so much rain and it was certainly in the back of my mind that my favourite back trail - about 6km of moderately technical ups and downs, holes, tree crossings, uphill sprints, rocks, bogs and tip toes - would have been affected by the drenching. But I was more worried about mud along the creek than anything else.
Setting out off the logging road and climbing up through the pines towards the gum treeshore all seemed well. I was in low range - the track is a path in some places and rubble in others with deep washouts I traverse by going around them - as you do. As I clambered along at around 6-10km in first I wound around a hillside with the high ground to my left and steep drops to the right, some lower slopes treed, others open.
Not far along this steep and rocky climb is a 50m section of longitudinal water carved ruts. I've done this track at least 50 times, so I know exactly where to put my feet when negotiating these tricky bits.
On the initial climb I could see the evidence of fresh erosion but while conditions were altered, holes deeper, the basic layout of the track was unchanged and I avoided the worst as usual. That changed when I came to the second section of challenging ruts that again, have to be avoided as far as possible rather than negotiated.
My usual method is to get out near the far edge of the track and keep one tyre in the comparatively smooth lane between the track and the drop-off while keeping my left hand wheels on a tall ridge that runs between deeper ruts. Given the number of times I have safely surfed this dirt wave, you can imagine my shock when I arrived at the trickiest place at 10kmph and found my helpful rut ridge suddenly ended in a deep hole with crumbling edges.
Caught between a stout young gum tree at the edge of the steep slope and even deeper ruts to the hillside of the track I went straight into this hole and in that state of panic you feel when you really don't want to stop in a thorny spot, applied a blip of throttle on the way in, bouncing through on pure momentum with a decent thump (not a crash) and some hard scrabble and lurching up between the ruts past the hole to even ground further on. The MY09's suspension did the usual admirable job of swallowing punishment. There was no heavy bottoming out and the ground was soft – typical granite sand and loam.
I pushed on with pounding heart after a quick check to make sure I was not going to be driving over the top of a detached bumper. My next thrill saw me arrive at a corner of the track that was completely covered in water and given my recent adrenaline shot, I decided to go around it – up the bank, through the pine trees and down the bank on the other side. Not for the first time, the scoob’s modest footprint and low height allowed me to get between trunks and under pine boughs I simply could not have negotiated in a larger vehicle.
The rest of the circuit involved plenty of gooey mud, a very steep hill climb scoob can only get up with the power right on (fun with a moist road – I nearly didn’t get up this run) then a slither back down the same hill, a meander through pine forest, some sand, plenty of deep puddles, a bog, then open ground along a fence, past a long line of beehives and some washed out tracks to finish.
Needless to say, I didn’t realise I’d mucked up the wheel balance till I got on the M4 Motorway bound for home and reached 120 kays an hour crossing the Nepean bridge. While the wheel was steady at 100 and 110, at 120 there was a noticeable new shake in the reins. Scoob goes in on Friday morning to get a SubaXtreme sump guard installed, a 31k service – and a wheel balance.
Not sure if I’ve thrown a weight or just moved it round the wheel rim – but something’s not right in the front end. To the untrained eye nothing serious looks out of place. Anyway, this weekend I’ll be back up at Lowes Mount Forest – with a mattock and shovel for the purposes of some track massage.
For the record, I’m running Dueller H/T’s with 30-plus thousand on them. They are a bit more than half done, I guess. Given they are road tyres they do surprisingly well on dirt, tho’ I have to confess to a complete 180 in thick mud on the closed road alongside Snakes Valley Creek last spring.
That’s the only time they’ve been overwhelmed by the conditions in 2 years – I was driving too quickly in that instance – about 30kmph on an uneven surface and dabbed the brakes when I saw mud ahead of me - a silly mistake. I tried that section a couple of times after this with the ESP off and using steady acceleration. Scoob was not perturbed. Again that’s a road I’ve done hundreds of times and thought I knew intimately and beyond surprise.
I had a vague fantasy of coming into the Abercrombie National Park from the Arkeville Rd entrance and driving down Bald Hill instead of up (after walking it first) but that didn't seem a good idea after a big wet and following warnings about the climb posted on this site by senior members. I thought valour and discretion ought to preserve their usual stand-offish relationship. Bald Hill will keep.
So on Saturday when bored it was off to the Lowes Mount Forest which could be reliably depended on to challenge me while still remaining within easy walking distance of my neighbour’s houses. I should have known better after so much rain and it was certainly in the back of my mind that my favourite back trail - about 6km of moderately technical ups and downs, holes, tree crossings, uphill sprints, rocks, bogs and tip toes - would have been affected by the drenching. But I was more worried about mud along the creek than anything else.
Setting out off the logging road and climbing up through the pines towards the gum treeshore all seemed well. I was in low range - the track is a path in some places and rubble in others with deep washouts I traverse by going around them - as you do. As I clambered along at around 6-10km in first I wound around a hillside with the high ground to my left and steep drops to the right, some lower slopes treed, others open.
Not far along this steep and rocky climb is a 50m section of longitudinal water carved ruts. I've done this track at least 50 times, so I know exactly where to put my feet when negotiating these tricky bits.
On the initial climb I could see the evidence of fresh erosion but while conditions were altered, holes deeper, the basic layout of the track was unchanged and I avoided the worst as usual. That changed when I came to the second section of challenging ruts that again, have to be avoided as far as possible rather than negotiated.
My usual method is to get out near the far edge of the track and keep one tyre in the comparatively smooth lane between the track and the drop-off while keeping my left hand wheels on a tall ridge that runs between deeper ruts. Given the number of times I have safely surfed this dirt wave, you can imagine my shock when I arrived at the trickiest place at 10kmph and found my helpful rut ridge suddenly ended in a deep hole with crumbling edges.
Caught between a stout young gum tree at the edge of the steep slope and even deeper ruts to the hillside of the track I went straight into this hole and in that state of panic you feel when you really don't want to stop in a thorny spot, applied a blip of throttle on the way in, bouncing through on pure momentum with a decent thump (not a crash) and some hard scrabble and lurching up between the ruts past the hole to even ground further on. The MY09's suspension did the usual admirable job of swallowing punishment. There was no heavy bottoming out and the ground was soft – typical granite sand and loam.
I pushed on with pounding heart after a quick check to make sure I was not going to be driving over the top of a detached bumper. My next thrill saw me arrive at a corner of the track that was completely covered in water and given my recent adrenaline shot, I decided to go around it – up the bank, through the pine trees and down the bank on the other side. Not for the first time, the scoob’s modest footprint and low height allowed me to get between trunks and under pine boughs I simply could not have negotiated in a larger vehicle.
The rest of the circuit involved plenty of gooey mud, a very steep hill climb scoob can only get up with the power right on (fun with a moist road – I nearly didn’t get up this run) then a slither back down the same hill, a meander through pine forest, some sand, plenty of deep puddles, a bog, then open ground along a fence, past a long line of beehives and some washed out tracks to finish.
Needless to say, I didn’t realise I’d mucked up the wheel balance till I got on the M4 Motorway bound for home and reached 120 kays an hour crossing the Nepean bridge. While the wheel was steady at 100 and 110, at 120 there was a noticeable new shake in the reins. Scoob goes in on Friday morning to get a SubaXtreme sump guard installed, a 31k service – and a wheel balance.
Not sure if I’ve thrown a weight or just moved it round the wheel rim – but something’s not right in the front end. To the untrained eye nothing serious looks out of place. Anyway, this weekend I’ll be back up at Lowes Mount Forest – with a mattock and shovel for the purposes of some track massage.
For the record, I’m running Dueller H/T’s with 30-plus thousand on them. They are a bit more than half done, I guess. Given they are road tyres they do surprisingly well on dirt, tho’ I have to confess to a complete 180 in thick mud on the closed road alongside Snakes Valley Creek last spring.
That’s the only time they’ve been overwhelmed by the conditions in 2 years – I was driving too quickly in that instance – about 30kmph on an uneven surface and dabbed the brakes when I saw mud ahead of me - a silly mistake. I tried that section a couple of times after this with the ESP off and using steady acceleration. Scoob was not perturbed. Again that’s a road I’ve done hundreds of times and thought I knew intimately and beyond surprise.
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