El_Freddo
Forum Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
- Messages
- 2,399
- Location
- Bridgewater, Vic
- Car Year
- 1988, 1990
- Car Model
- EJ22'd L series; Targa Brumby
- Transmission
- Locking FT4wd 5spd Manual, 4.111:1 diff w 1.59:1 low range & front OBX LSD ;)
G'day all,
This was our much anticipated touring trip for some time now. It *should* have been longer, as I'm sure Venom and Dulagarl would agree.
For those that might know of the Wimmera River in Victoria you might thing it's not a lot of fun. Well what I've learnt about it in the last 9 months or so have blown me away, it's a river system that starts in the Mt Cole area that also takes water from the Grampians; it flows in a general north westerly direction before ending in a series of terminal lakes where it evaporates at some point, usually in the first or second lake these days. I'd love to see the last lake full, that'd be amazing!
To get the report underway, I'll start with these two pics - where we started and where we ended to show the contrast of the many different environments we travelled through on this trip.
Mt Cole:
Wirrengren Plain (got that right Dulagarl? Have now!)
We all arrived about an hour from the 1st to the last at the Ditchfield's camp in Mt Cole, as the first pic above. I'm glad I was there to represent the H4 subaru, seems we're being "inundated" by H6's!
Here's one of Ruby Scoo with 3 people and gear/food for 5 days:
This trip was aimed at following the Wimmera River as close as possible. We saw a few other things of interest along the way. Here's the start of the river, as close as we could get to it's very start without going bush bashing:
Here's the river later in Mt Cole:
We found the 37th Parallel near Joel Joel:
Here's a series of crossings on the Wimmera River, note the height of the debris from the floods last year:
Flood damage to the Dimboola weir:
^ apparently not the only engineering failure of this type on the river!
The last river crossing before camp, the water peaked just under .4m, it dropped by morning. So much for the flood warning!
Camp on night two. It was a good fire night and we were all dry - until about 6am when it bucketed down.
We packed everything up before breakfast and headed back towards the dimboola road break for some shelter and breakfast. It was a bit of a back track but it meant that we could then follow the river road from where Dulagarl had planned to the day before. And good driving it was! Dulagarl was the only one to get stuck when following the track. It was the typical scenario that has you knowing it's all wrong beyond the point of no return.
It was snatch time, in slippery conditions such as these it was necessary to take extra precautions so that we didn't have two vehicles stuck or a vehicle end up on it's roof. We had enough trouble just walking in this area!
The H4 was in this pic for it's good looks and natural charm
.
This was our much anticipated touring trip for some time now. It *should* have been longer, as I'm sure Venom and Dulagarl would agree.
For those that might know of the Wimmera River in Victoria you might thing it's not a lot of fun. Well what I've learnt about it in the last 9 months or so have blown me away, it's a river system that starts in the Mt Cole area that also takes water from the Grampians; it flows in a general north westerly direction before ending in a series of terminal lakes where it evaporates at some point, usually in the first or second lake these days. I'd love to see the last lake full, that'd be amazing!
To get the report underway, I'll start with these two pics - where we started and where we ended to show the contrast of the many different environments we travelled through on this trip.
Mt Cole:
Wirrengren Plain (got that right Dulagarl? Have now!)
We all arrived about an hour from the 1st to the last at the Ditchfield's camp in Mt Cole, as the first pic above. I'm glad I was there to represent the H4 subaru, seems we're being "inundated" by H6's!
Here's one of Ruby Scoo with 3 people and gear/food for 5 days:
This trip was aimed at following the Wimmera River as close as possible. We saw a few other things of interest along the way. Here's the start of the river, as close as we could get to it's very start without going bush bashing:
Here's the river later in Mt Cole:
We found the 37th Parallel near Joel Joel:
Here's a series of crossings on the Wimmera River, note the height of the debris from the floods last year:
Flood damage to the Dimboola weir:
^ apparently not the only engineering failure of this type on the river!
The last river crossing before camp, the water peaked just under .4m, it dropped by morning. So much for the flood warning!
Camp on night two. It was a good fire night and we were all dry - until about 6am when it bucketed down.
We packed everything up before breakfast and headed back towards the dimboola road break for some shelter and breakfast. It was a bit of a back track but it meant that we could then follow the river road from where Dulagarl had planned to the day before. And good driving it was! Dulagarl was the only one to get stuck when following the track. It was the typical scenario that has you knowing it's all wrong beyond the point of no return.
It was snatch time, in slippery conditions such as these it was necessary to take extra precautions so that we didn't have two vehicles stuck or a vehicle end up on it's roof. We had enough trouble just walking in this area!
The H4 was in this pic for it's good looks and natural charm
.
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And people wonder why areas get closed down!
Good fun though.
Thunder, get your A into G and come out with us some time!