Crystalvale

10th - 11th September

I arrived Saturday morning to find quite a few had arrived earlier. Got set up and Ian calls the troops together to go driving. We went out on Saturday morning and home for lunch and then on Sunday went out in the morning.

We drove up hills and down dales through beautiful countryside. Green grass and like a tropical paradise. The tracks were good and we even found some mud to drive through. A few of the hills were slippery and wet so we left them alone. We drove up “Angels Descent” and around the “Bermuda Triangle” and we never found the “Friday Hill”. That was the hill that Ian found on Friday but was not there on Saturday and Sunday. Steve spend some time showing us what a diff locker can do and the difference it makes. I think after that there will be a few more diff lockers installed. I had my adrenaline rushes on the weekend on a few of the hills and around one of the mud puddles that Gordon got towed out of. We had a chap join us from Byron Bay on the Saturday afternoon run and Steve ended up pulling him out of one of the mud puddles and then he left us.

With the football finals on we had to watch the Broncos, even though a few were more interested in the cricket score but I took my little black and white TV and we got picture and no sound so here we were watching the TV and had the radio on for sound. Loraine joined me for awhile to watch it. An interesting experience particularly when the radio was not quite in sinc with the TV and then when the adds came on well. But after the game we joined the fire and tried to get over the sadness of the loss and cheer up.

A magic place and thanks to Ian for his leadership on the weekend and all who came to make it the wicked weekend it was.

Bill Freeman