West Coast Jan 05

[DieselBoy]

Well:
After a stress full week pacing around the house while the Safari was in the work shop having a new clutch installed, it was a releif when Thursday finally dawned. 4:30pm they assured me it would be ready.
Bill appeared at around 2pm having made good time from Wanaka, six and a half hours it took him, including the stop to clear the bird from his snorkel, and others to relieve the tension from his back caused by the 80psi he was running in the tyres on his LWB Prado.
After a bit more clock watching, we shot down and picked up the Safari. Friction plate looked new, but the pressure plate was very burnt and scored. Someone had taken the cheap option at some stage i reckon.
So there i was, putting the interior back to gether and putting the sump guard back on when i noticed antifreeze dripping on the drive way, and the nuts holding the rear drive shaft to the hand brake drum where only located on their threads. That really didn't instill a sense of confidence in the quailty of the job that had been done. I was paranoid all weekend about something else coming loose and flying through the floor. Not that i found anything after going around every bell housing bolt etc.

Later in the dark, Mike & Sonya showed up in the Surf, followed soon by Adam and his co-driver in the SWB Pajero. We hung around and chatted untill mid night, well they did, i was still going over in my head what else could the mechanic have forgotten to do........

Friday dawned, and after a quick breaky and running around getting fuel for the chainsaw which Bill insisted we take, we set off up Deniston.
I chose to take them up the old Drill track, which consists of a track cut through the slim soil horizon with a dozer straight into hard sandstone. Some quite interesting rock ledges to negotiate, and a couple of loose climbs. Wake up call guys!!!!



No one, bar me had any real problems.
Next we decided to shoot up Mt Rochford to the repeater station, but when we arived the cloud had rolled in and there wasn't much to see.
Heading back down the way we came, we set of on the Mackley river track. This is a good gravel track, with two reasonably tricky river crossings, depending on the rainfall of the preceeding days.
No one had any problems, besides a building craving for mud, untill we reached the Mackly river. I have a good video in my album!!



After recieving an ear bashing for taking to long in working out the best route to take around some of the larger loose bolders underwater, i breezed through. So did Adam. Mike was next. It appeared he had set himself up correctly, but the front end of the Surf rolled off a bolder and put him all wrong, ending up square on, to the biggest bolder in the river. Very amusing.
Bill got over excited, and charged down into the river and promptly got the Prado stuck imediatly behind the Surf. Two vehicles now stuck in the river. Lucky for them Adam had the presense of mind to work out and set him self up in the river to pull them both forward. We got Mike moving again, and Bill thrashed around for a while and managed to shake the Prado loose. I found it all quite amusing, especially the sooty slick running down stream from the exhaust of Mikes Surf!!!
With that under out belts, we carried on out to the Buller gorge, and made our way to Reefton and the end of the Bigriver track to set up camp. A nice cruzy scenic day.



Saturday arrived, and we headed out, back to Reefton. I have no idea how fast they were traveling on that track, but apparently i was seven minutes behind the rest of them when i got into Reefton. And Bill was running 80psi!!! Ouch !!!!
We met up with a couple in a VX Cruiser from Auckland as arranged the day before, and set off to Napoleons Hill/Waipuna Tunnels. Nice easy track, with a few tricky down hill sections. Very scenic again, I'm sure you have all seen pics before!!





We drove out down the river, to meet up with the road as opposed to going through the farm, somthing i have been wanting to do for a while, but conditions have never been right.
Cockeye creek was next on the list, and as every one had been making me painfully aware, they were in need of a challenge, and indeed they were going to get one!!!
The track is in good condition, but with some very steep entry and exit points accross the creek.
Not sure, but i think every one got towed up a bank at some point or other. Bill even found some mud to get him self stuck in. Good effort, i reckon he was home sick!!




The last exit point from the creek was boardering on verticle, and after three goes, very very slowly, very slowly, and then slowly, i was up. The long wheel base's made light work of it, all be it with quite a few more rev's and a lot more wheel spin then i used
It had every one grinning at the end!!





We wandered the rest of our way out to the road, as the clock ticked over to 6:00pm. Time flys when your having fun.



It was decided that we would stick to the plan and meet up with Noname road on which we were going to camp.
I was amazed at the drastic change to the river bed during the three or four weeks it had been since i was there last. Alot of water had been down thats for sure. I got lost at one stage looking for where the exit point should have been, only to end up making our own thrack through the gorse untill Mike mentioned he had found a likley looking track. Relieved, we carried on our way, it was getting late.
I had to winch the Surf into our camp site, and Adam had to tow Bill in. Lots of fun, especially when i got close to stuck my self after the Safari sank into the soft marshy area off the track while winching Mike. Sorry about the mud on your seat covers Bill, you should have wound your windows up!!!
We managed to get a fire going on the river bed to ward off the sand flys, and sat around talking about Landrovers. Yawn



Sunday moring was fairly cheerfull, no one had seriouse damage, and we had about 3/4 of an hour of tarseal to do to get to Ross.
I took the opportunity to pump up my tyres at the camp site before we left, and then started on Bills for him. That was the end of my compressor, after doing two and a half tyres up to 60psi it cried enough, and started sending smoke signals to let us know. Interesting as it is rated at 140PSI continuous, with no duty cycle. Time to pull a scam on Repco i think.
We set of down to Ross, and made our way up Mt Greenland. Track was in similar condition to when i was there last, and upon reaching "the hill climb" i was worried about the smell of diff oil lingering in the air. After checking it wasn't mine, i wandered of up the hill following a trickel of gear oil to see weather it was going to be do-able. I got about half way up, to find the end of the fresh tracks, with a very large stained area where some one had seriously damaged either a front Diff or Transfercase in a vigorous attempt to get up. I could see why!!!
I had a few goes, trying different routes, different speeds, different gears, moving rocks, adding rocks, but in the end i stopped before the hill claimed anoher diff.



Beaten, we turned and headed back down. Still, the part of the track we did do was certainly entertaining.
Back in Ross we decided to call it a weekend. We got some lunch and headed of in our seperate directions.
Awesome trip, really good company, and i hope to do it all again sometime soon!!!
Pete.

[wjw]

And we used the chainsaw for firewood duties oh and next time I drive through one of those rivers I'll watch what "I'm doing" instead of what mike's doing

Anyway was great fun, cheers Pete.... looking forward to the next one... although I still haven't fixed my exhaust yet, still deciding what to do with it..... hmmm

[mike]

Good memories, I'm still writing my version

Mike

[DieselBoy]

Photo's are up!!!

[padero]

TOP weekend ! WILL do it again ...

[albundy]

looks like you guys had a shitload of fun with Bill supplying the entertainment. Wway did you guys do the tunnels, as if you go through them first and in the rain, then the track can be quite challenging. Can't waitb to get back over to the coast. We weren't able to get to the top of mount greenland either as that part in the photo was covered in ice when we went. Must maske another plan to beat that hill sometime, even a day trip would do it, leaving chch early. ant takers, even if we have to winch up.
albundy the mad ozzie.

[DieselBoy]

Yep, I'm in, i can't beleive my old terrano went straight up it. I reckon it looked worse than that when we did it aswell.
Thats was the worst bit of the track if i remember correctly.
Make a date. We could go up waitahu for friday night and then people could join us there on Saturday or somthing.
As for going the other way, well, you could winch your self up at the mo, but it is frowned upon. You are only supposed to do it from the Ahura end, to avoid wrecking that hill climb, and making it impossible to even get down. There was a Doc sign up at the end of the gorge saying No 4x4's Past This Point before you got to the hill, but that didn't last long.
What sign??

[mike]

Here is my verison of events. No photos, still working on the digital camera thing

This trip was kindly organised by DieselBoy. Padero, wjw and I (Mike) jumped at the chance to explore west coast tracks by a west coaster. Now I haven’t been to the west coast in 17 years so was eagerly waiting for the trip to start.

Day One,

After a few brief introductions the night before and general chitchat about the vehicles attending it was time to head off in the morning. The vehicles on the trip were one swb pajero with muds(padero), one swb safari with muds(DB), one lwb prado with muds(wjw) and one surf with AT’s (mikes). There were a few sideway glances at my road looking tyres, not to worry I spent the last weeks putting good recovery points in .

We all stocked up at the supermarket, fuelled up and headed off towards the hills. 15km’s later and a game of chicken with a west coast train we arrived at the start of the 1st track. The track was a rough rocky track taking us up onto the Denniston Plateau, up to the repeater station into surrounded by coal mining. There were quite a few rock steps to negotiate up which I believe I had the most goes at and hence more fun J. The AT’s performed much better later when the pressures were dropped from 35-40psi to 25psi. After the steps we headed to the top of the track where the radio/TV tower was, which of course, was clouded in fog! After a good sterilisation from the overhead waves we headed for the mackly river. On arriving at the river and assessing that it would be nothing but easy the surf gained a blue cover to make up for the lack of a snorkel. By the time wjw and I had put the wading tarp on the front of the surf, the other two vehicles had made it through to the other side. The river was low and water clear and about as deep as the sills on the surf, this was just as well as the surf was about to get a bath! I approached the crossing on the same line as the pajero, which had gone through a big hole that was not seen due to the tarp being put on! As the surf approached the hole another route was suggested and as the surf came around rolled up and over a rock and stuck. Wjw went to go around yes you guessed it stuck as well. The pajero backed up attached a strap and waited for the go ahead. There was a very large rock to the right front of the surf, which I was going to steer around quite easily. Of course Murphy was poking his nose around and the current hooked the strap underneath the large rock and moved it right in front of the surf so it felt like I had driven onto an island! Here I was sitting high and dry with everyone looking at the front with worry and cautious expressions. Obviously being recovered frontward was not the best option but at that stage it was the only option as wjw was in his own little predicament. Most people would have given up after the first few attempts but not wjw! After moving some rocks, thrashing the prado around a little, moving some more rocks, and then after a 14ft high shooting jet of water she came free. Was good to watch! After the tow strap was released the surf was able to back up and drive through the hole and out the other side. I believe we had so much fun that the spectators were watching us wanted to join up with us for the Waipuna tunnels

After the river crossing we headed out to the main road through the dust storm created by the swb’s up front and onto reefton. We then started on the big river track and although very easy was very scenic! Lots of old mine tunnels and corners! After exploring the old mine workings which included a quick scramble up the top of the mountain of mine tailings and looking down the 650m mine shaft we set up camp down by the sand fly swamp. A quick byte to eat and a campfire established. Unfortunately it wasn’t big enough to stop the zillions of sand flies having a byte to eat themselves!

Day two:

An uneventful trip back into reefton and we soon restocked and met up with the Landcruiser spectators whom I might add went straight through the mackly with no trouble and obviously not as much fun either!

We then headed to napoleons hill and the tunnels. This track had a few muddy puddles and some nice hairy rutty downhills that you wouldn’t want to come back up unless you had nowhere to be for the next few hours!

Driving along the riverbed towards the tunnels was a very fun, scenic and refreshing track. The tunnel breaks out into a nice lunch area where we had lunch and played a bit on the shingle banks in the centre of the river. I do believe the 80psi belief may have been broken here unless of course wjw is willing to admit that the surf is truly a superior machine to the prado?

From here we headed to cockeye creek road. This track started off by driving up the riverbed to actually find the track. We travelled along a formed track for a while and came to a few hazards. The track would go from well-formed shingle/grass track into quite a tricky hazard for which LWB trucks suffered on their lack of departure angle. After a couple of these, the ditches started to get progressively steeper on the exit and the prado had to be towed on two of these. I had redesigned the surfs tow bar so I could remove the tongue and replace it with a high-lift/shackle point which is substantially higher than the tow bars which resulted in just enough departure angle to get through! Unfortunately the trailer light plug did not survive . The track made its way along and through the river, which was very pleasant. There were the remains of an old bridge half way through which I thought was strange as the road was very small and had many river crossings to warrant a bridge in the middle of nowhere. Later we were informed this was the main road that linked up with arthers pass!

To this point the swb trucks had pretty much breezed over the obstacles due to their wheelbases, which gives much better departure and ramp over angles. One of the last banks to climb out of the river required several attempts each by the swb’s and to their horror (they hid it well but we know it was there!) both the surf and the prado made it up first go . This track contains the mud hole that was responsible for DB’s rear quarter panel damage. The hazard consisted of old logs/branches across a swampy bit, which had quite large holes in between the logs, and the safari dropped into one of these holes with momentum, thus causing the body to keep going down with the wheel and the log to hit just behind the mudflap. Next up was the pajero, which also went through (muddies!) With the surf I was a little more cautious and slowly went through on the AT’s. The surf got through to where the deep hole with the panel damage was and once the rear wheel dropped in and momentum was lost recovery was needed. Padero backed up and had me out rather smartly. On being recovered from the hole it was discovered that my exhaust had unhitched itself on the rubber hanger at the back. Luckily enough the rubber hanger was still there and it was a matter of just re-attaching a hot exhaust. Next up was the prado, which decided to take a different line and straddle the ruts. The prados left front wheel slid off the side and it was stuck on its front axle and was stuck fast. All attempts to self recover via rocking back and forth moving the steering failed. It took three snatches on the surf to drag the heavy prado out, although the initial first two snatches were not heavy snatches. From here we proceeded to no name road and made our way along. This track was fast and mainly downhill from where we entered it. At times I had trouble keeping up with the swb’s in front. There were mud splashes from head to toe when we finally got to the mud play area. Near the end of the track were some pre-existing bogs where the vehicles with muddies only attempted. Some were so deep and thick that a unimog would have struggled! Of course the surf made it through……the easy ones

We made camp a few yards down the track on the river and that night proceeded to be eaten by mossies!! I woke in the middle of the night to find the inside of the tent overrun by an army of them!

After breakfast we headed for Mount Greenland. This track was a steep rocky track to the summit, or as in our case nearly to the summit as the last hundred metres proved to be impassable by our shineys without damage. It may have been possible but oil trail half way up where a blown diff possible put us off All in all it was a good fun track with good views and a bit of history in the local town.


We all met at the bottom and had a bite to eat. From here we parted our ways and we headed home. A great trip and a great 3 days camping.