Beerwah – Beerburrum State Forest

Attendance: Quite a lot of cars, never found out the actual count.

Well, running late as usual, Mel and I turned up just in time to sign on, run to the bakery and buy the last two pies in the shop (big mistake!) and change a nappy (Declan’s not mine!). So after all that headed off to catch up with the convoy. Backtracking where we had come from to get there! Oh well, after catching up we locked in the front hubs while others let some air out of their tyres. I thought this was to be a moderate trip and after looking at Merv’s car and noticing he had his road tyres on I left mine pumped up.

Then we were off again and soon off the main track into the scrub. After a few easy parts we stopped to look at “Locker Lane” while others looked at “Ball Bearing Hill”. No, no one had a go at “Locker Lane”, as I understand it did a lot of damage to Merv’s car on the recee the weekend before. A few had a go at “Ball Bearing Hill” and made it with others having a little trouble going up the side track. I took a wrong turn and missed the hill, had decided to let some air out to give it a go as well, never mind maybe next time. We then doubled back and found some mud holes and tight turns to go through. A few trees across the track slowed things down till magically they got out of our way and we were able to proceed. Morning tea eventually arrived after a few moans from some drivers. Then off to follow the power lines. We then doubled back through the scrub and found a nice place to have lunch. Just before lunch we had to stop for a while as our Leader “Jamie” got himself bogged, backing down a hill to have another go, but slipped into a bog hole and was stuck. Unfortunately all the Patrols were towards the back of the line so had to rely on another Toyota to pull him out, it took a while but eventually got the job done and we were on our way again to find another tricky hill to climb to get to the lunch area. Not sure what the tracks were like at the front but when I got there I couldn’t see what was causing all the trouble, my mighty Nissan and the other Nissans seemed to just idle up.

After lunch we followed a track out to the main road. It was just after 2pm by this stage and Jamie offered to do one more track for those interested. A few went home at this stage and the rest of us followed Jamie into the scrub again. This was a bit more challenging with a very steep little climb after a small tricky decent. I watched a few cars climb this bit with Graham Moore trying to launch his Patrol to the moon with his attempt, just idled up it myself no worries. The next thing of course is we had to go down and that was a tricky decent. Everyone seemed to pitch in and guide us all down with out too much damage. Some Toyota Prado copped a ding somewhere, looked like it needed some character to make it look like a real 4WD anyway.

That was it then for the day. Thanks to Jamie for doing a wonderful job in his first trip lead, he did a great job. See Jamie, not as hard as it sounds like to lead a trip. I had a great day as did everyone, I can’t speak for my wife and kid though – they were tired after a party the night before. Both slept through most of the tracks, with Declan missing the best bits – never had a passenger fall a sleep on me in the Landy, even sitting still it was too rough to sleep in!

Brett Lynch.