Hi all,
What a brilliant weekend, Saturday climbing rocks on the goatrack up to Denniston was a hoot, after lunch Nuts lead us down towards the Mackley and more fun was had on a very steep side track by Bill, Craig and me, a bottom corner back onto the track and wheels were well and truly lifted.
On reaching the Mackley I decided to climb out of the riverbed via a small river flowing in, last thing said on my RT was....don't follow me, Bill not hearing did exactly the opposite and got well hung up
but we soon had him free due to clever rock placements
Sunday for me was family day, went for a walk out to the lighthouse, follwed by a short 4x4 tack to the old quarry, then down to Charleston and a ride on the Nile river railway which concludes with a climb by foot up to the limestone caves, an absolutle breathtaking trip which I would recommend to anyone.
Others went to Waipuna tunnels and some heading over Napeloens hill.
yes was a great weekend
We always intended having one hell of a trip on Monday.....but didn't think we would still be battling the trail at 20 to 2 in the morning
The original track we intended doing had a unpassable washout so went looking for an alternative and definately found one
As leithfield has pointed out it was one hell of an adventure, started off rlatively tame and thrn the fun began. Winching began at 2.30pm, at about 3:15pm decided best option was to head back so as not to get caught out by nightfall, thats when the fun began
the turning around of the vehicles took the best part of 3 hours due to the nature of where we were, to turn Robs truck around we winched the front up hill and my winch on his rear and it turned on a dime, Kevs truck had to be winched nose up via a block and then some nice driving to inch it around, all the time my wife working the winch and me making sure it wasn't going to get ugly on several trees.
Once we were all turned around night had fallen, torches were donned and Robs battery ran out of steam, but his alternator was charging, as he was now in the lead, I removed my battery and use jumper leads to get him winching again
finally getting to a point where I could refit my battery and we found if Rob set his hand throttle high he could get enough juiceinto the battery in between times.
At about 10.00pm my truck decided to have a bad rattle and wasn't charging, completely died and no dash lights, quick check under the bonnet revealed a slightly loose battery lead and soon had It up and running again but the knock remained, sounded like a big end bearing but had to keep driving, the weird thing is that the oil pressure has skyrocketed, would expect the opposite
more towing winching, at one stage we had 60m of ropes out all joined together, and Robs truck winching through the block and slowly we inched our way to harder ground, my wife now driving my rig so I could watch over trucks, winch, trees, and ropes
once on the harder ground and now about 1am, my radiator springs a leak mid core backside for no apparent reason, and it was a brand new core only 2 years ago
So decided to tow it with leithfiels truck now we were on better ground, a couple of short tough hills had no choice but to start my truck up and drive, watching the temp guage rise each time till just hitting the red
but making to a point where we could tow it again.
Got onto the gravel at 1:40 am tired but pumped from a shitload of fun
Yes I got towed home from Westport to Chch so it was me and Dad you seen, Robs 2.8 diesel doing a fantastic effort to have us all safely home last night just before dark.
Started truck up to drive into the garage anf no rattles or kncks
but oil pressure still reading way too high.
Was an excellent adventure and due to plenty of recovery gear an well set up vehicles made it fun, the mechanical failures I experienced were not due to any thing we were doing at the time and could happen to anyone anywhere anytime.
Truck of the day goes to Rob
When are we all going back
