Offroad-Express

been spending a bit of time making sand castles lately.. have noticed more and more vehicles up in the bombing range.. all over the sand dunes and groups of people camping out up there.

whats the deal re: access etc

i know ir's safe to be that far north on the beach as long as the red flag isnt up (denotes military use in progress.. bombing, exercises etc)

can anybody enlighten me?

on a side note.. pulled someone out today. i didnt really want to as he didnt have any hooks and i had to pull off the towball. this idiot didnt have any gear at all. i suggested he get hooks, strap and a spade as a mininum.. and a friend in another truck as ideal

From the point of veiw of the military this is a dangerous area to be in as they dispose of all sorts of ordanace there as well as run bombing operations. Some of the holes we have made are huge when we leave but soon fill up with soft sand and water. Problem is they are still soft months later and can catch the unwary with disaterous results. We all know how big and capable a unimog is - they sometimes get stuck and this is up to the windscreen stuck not axles stuck. so watch out for those little puddles sometimes they are not that little. even the well used tracks arent all that safe with people doing stupid stuff too close to them (long story)

Also as a byproduct of detonating large bombs, etc there is lots of shrapnel laying about some with very sharp edges that will eat sidewalls not to mention humans.

The red flags denote operations under way but some really cleaver people steal them (on several ocassions the range has had to be closed because people wandered in in vehicles saying flags were not visible). So no flags doesnt necesarily mean no bangers.

Bugger really as that place is a great place with great tracks.

Heath

yeah it's also beautiful up there.. in it's own way.

noticed a shit load of shrapnel on the ground up there. no problems yet with ripped rubber.

a few months back a group of my friends were up there while the military were running some stuff. they were allowed to stay as long as they stuck to some army dude and were committed to 4 hours without bein able to get out. they loved it.. im jealous i wasnt there

im keen to head up there one weekend soon and get my camp on.. and play in the sand. do you know if there's a more reliable warning system in place if i dont trust the flags, or lack of?

Weekends should be fine (military dont tend to work weekends unless they have to) but worth checking for flags just incase.

Heath

Weekends should be fine (military dont tend to work weekends unless they have to) but worth checking for flags just incase.

Heath

Yea we used to head up and camp up there a bit its great fun.

We ran into the military one weekend, went and had a chat and they were blowing cars up. So they just told us to be at least a Km away in half an hours time and we went and sat on top of a sand dune and watched a bloody big explosion. It was awesome.

But yea there were no red flags up that time and they didn't seem annoyed just as long as we stayed out of there way at explosion time.

Kent

My understanding is that the 'Bombing Range' is strictly off limits to all recreational users. There were police and security guards up the north end of the beach a while back stopping everyone from going near the area. Apart from huge soft holes, shrapnel and stolen flags during live operations, there is also unexploded munitions.

4WDbits wrote:..there were police and security guards up the north end of the beach a while back ..

speaking to one of the local 4wd club members recently.. the military pulled an unexploded 500lb shell out of there not too long ago. wonder if they were blocking the area during extraction. supposedly been under the sand since the late 50s

i was up there not long ago and found a CSI type experiment. i bunch of dead sheep penned off. one wearing a singlet. they were all in different states of deterioration. measuring tapes across they're chest cavity. im guessing to meassure the swelling etc. some had been there longer than others as the rates of decay were different.

needless to say, i backed slowly away and havnt been back to that spot since

Man that sounds like a horrific case of multiple muttonicide!

What was written on the tee shirt, wasn't Auckland 4wd Club was it?