We met at the Wodonga Plant Farm at 8.30 am and after singing a quick Happy Birthday to Yvonne (at her insistence), Jeff gave a brief outline on the drive for the day. I have since discovered that Yvonne’s actual birthday is not until 15th July!
We left and travelled along Beechworth Road and after taking the detour past the strawberry farm we eventually reached Beechworth and went straight to Lake Sambell for morning smoko.
We left Lake Sambell and headed into Beechworth turning towards Stanley. We took the Myrtleford Road and travelled for some 15 kms down the Buckland Gap, eventually having to do a U turn to turn onto Wells Boundary Track.
Right from the beginning there were a couple of steep humpty does. About 3 kms along this track we stopped and aired down tyres. The views on some of the downhills were spectacular even with the smoke haze. Turned onto Rifle Range Track and again we encountered some very steep and rocky uphills which proved a challenge for a couple of vehicles.
Turned right onto Basin Creek Track and followed this track through the pine plantation until we reached our lunch spot. A leisurely lunch and chat were enjoyed by all.
Back into the vehicles after lunch and we crossed the Myrtleford Road and turned into Wally’s Track. This track had some bogholes a couple of which Jim had problems with and had to be helped by Ernie who ran his winch out to give Jim a hand.
We reached Granite Track and were about to head onto Jeep Track when we encountered five motor cyclists who were going up Jeep Track also. We sat and watched them and unfortunately when they got to the first steep section the lead biker went down and then tried to push his bike up the hill, with the remaining bikers not proceeding any further.
We heard a few days later that three vehicles had endeavoured to come down Jeep Track from the Mt.Stanley Fire Tower, with one vehicle ending up off the track sideways and the vehicles having to be rescued.
We decided to forego our visit to the tower and followed Circular Creek Road to then turn onto Escarpment Track which we followed for some time. Turned onto Meurant Lane which we followed only to run into a locked gate. We noticed a track going to the left beside a pine plantation and decided looking at the map that this would link up with Schmidts Track. This track was described by one members as “like being on a rollercoaster at Luna Park”.
We did arrive at Schmidts Track and finally we thought we had found the way out of the Yack Forest. Alas our mighty Trip Leader had to open his big mouth about perhaps finding a tree across the track and of course we did in the next few seconds.
Two chainsaws were produced and after much sawing and chopping we put a chain around the tree and Jeff hooked it onto our vehicle and tried to pull the tree out of the way. After about ¾ hour this effort was abandoned and we decided that the only thing to do was retreat the way we had come.
Tail-end Charlie had mentioned earlier when we were on Wallys Track, that we had picked up another vehicle behind. A gentleman by the name of Tony and his father were from Tarrawingee and were out driving around in the bush. They actually thought we knew where we were going, so decided to tag along.
So, when we retreated from the fallen tree, this in fact made Tony Trip Leader! He said he did know where he was going and so we followed him out of the bush, pulled up to air-up tyres and then travelled back to Wodonga to pull up at Maccas for coffee and in some cases, burgers and ice-creams.
We had a most enjoyable day with an amazing group of members and we hope you all enjoyed the trip as much as we did.