Licola IBIS

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Licola - Macalister River (the sisters)
Dates: 19 - 21 Feb
Weather: Perfect. 26, 22, 30.
Crew: Toon, Naren, Morris
Key Tracks Hit: Black Soil Gully Track, Macalister river, Butcher Country Track, Butcher Link Track, Caledonia River Track.
Vehicles Used: Paj
Distance Travelled: 700 kms
Campsites: The Sisters
Fishing: River fishing the macalister. Zip.
Gear Purchased: Husqvarna 236 Chainsaw
Gear Review: Chainsaw took a few goes to break in the engine, but after some cutting it started easy. Went through a bunch of trees like butter. Saved a TON of time cutting down the forest to help keep us warm at night!!! Thanks mum and dad for the present!!
Food: Naren fancy fk sandiches, Morris's hotpot, bacon and eggs, naren fancy fk hot dogs, chicken avo sandwiches, damper.
Report: Great time had by all. Smooth drive down, picked up food and booze at Moe. Got into licola, filled up the tank at $1.75. Headed down target creek road towards macalister river track. Arrived at camp at secret spot thanks to LFDD 4X4!

Once beers were in hand, tents and cooking area was set up. Awning came out, but didnt tie it down, and a freak wind decided to break it. Damn wind! Then explored in the 4x4 with chainsaw to find firewood. Chopped a boot load, headed back to camp to get cooking. Played Klop as the coals took shape.

Next morning headed towards butcher country track to make the steep drive up, then down butcher link track to caledonia river for lunch. Great track, would have been much easier in 4HLc (thanks Morris!). Fancy fk lunch was solid with chorizo hot dogs and boules.

Arrived back at camp, set up a shooting range for air rifle, and shot then klopped our way to dusk. Roast chicken & avo sandwiches with beers and whiskey to send Morris to sleep, while we kept chatting by the fire.

Next day, slowly packed up and after a quick swim and damper headed back up Black Soil Gully track for the scenic drive back to licola. Hungry Jacks on the way home was horrible. KFC would have been far better!

Rating: 9/10 . 10/10 for having taken out a rabbit or something, not for breaking the awning, and getting kfc to cap it off.

Lerderderg State Park

Type: Hiking + camping
Location: Lerderderg State Park, O'Brien's Crosssing to Blackwood
Dates: 8 Jan - 10 Jan
Weather: Mid 20s, no rain
Crew: Me, my bros and my old man
Key Tracks Hit: We did a circuit loop at the northern part of the state park, near Blackwood. Some were hiking tracks, some were 4WD tracks.
Vehicles Used: On foot
Distance Travelled: ~25k in total. Nailed the whole circuit on the Saturday (20k) and then had only an hour or so walking on the second day, so we did another day walk down the south part near Lerderderg Gorge (2k+3k). Apparently they get peregrine falcon sitings there, but we didn't see any.
Campsites: Stayed the first night at O'Brien's Crossing by the Lerderderg "river", which was dried up, with not even a trickle. Pretty crap campsite and lots of people there. We stayed at Shaws Lake picnic ground on the second night. Much better campsite and way less crowded.
Fishing: Not that we were carrying fishing gear in our packs, but no water to be seen anyway.
Gear Purchased: None
Gear Review: None
Food: We had dinner the first night at Blackwood Pub. Pretty good place considering such a small country town. Would check it out again, but would also try the cafe there for dinner too. We got a coffee from there on the Sunday and the place was cool with a nice view. Camping food on Saturday night was ready made meals - Thai Green Chicken and Butter Chicken boiled up on our hiking stove. Good hiking food and easy.
Report: I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. I'd been wanting to check out Lerderderg for a while, as it's bloody close to Melbourne. The place seems more geared up for 4WDing, which didn't help us, given we were on foot. There weren't any cool peaks or views or anything that you want when you go on a long day's hike. We may have just hit up the wrong area though, and the southern part could be better. On the Friday night, we ate at Blackwood and then drove to O'Brien's Crossing, which was supposed to be our half way point. But given there was no water there we drove back into Blackwood on the Saturday morning, filled up our bottles and then started our hike from there. We didn't want to stay at the O'Brien's Crossing again, which was the half way point, so ended up pushing on and finishing the whole circuit in the day. Big day of hiking with full packs on, starting at 8am and finishing at 4.30, so we were wrecked when we got there. We chucked our packs on the ground and fell asleep for an hour in the sun cos we couldn't be bothered putting our tents up. Chilled for the rest of the night there, listening to tunes and playing cards. The next day was a quick walk back to Blackwood and then we drove down to Mackenzies Flat picnic ground, which had a good 1 hour round trip walk. Would be a lot cooler when then water is flowing.
Overall scenery and hike rating: 5/10. Wouldn't do it again at that time of year when so dry.
Wildlife rating: 8/10 - Saw heaps of wildlife, amazing given it's so close to Melbourne. Saw two echidnas (this was the highlight for me as I'd only seen one in the wild before), a koala, heaps of roos, wallabies, kookas / other birdlife and a couple of wedge tail eagles. Also saw a fox in our campsite while we were playing cards. The thing wasn't scared of us at all, just ran straight through our site, only metres away from us. We chased it off when it was going near our packs, but it came back 3 times! Wish I had Toon's .22!

Robe, Beachport, Grampians

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Beachport, Robe, Grampians
Dates: 26th-31st December
Weather: 25 at Robe, 38 at Grampians
Crew: VB family
Key Tracks Hit: Robe to Beachport via Beach
Vehicles Used: '05 Paj
Distance Travelled: 1450 kms
Campsites: 3 Mile Bend # 6 @ Beachport, Colhurst House B&B @ Mt Gambier, Buandik Campground #1 @ Grampians
Fishing: Unfortunately no time :(. Great surf spots between Robe and Beachport to throw a line. Was hoping to go after some mulloway. Beachport pier at 750 meters was also producing mullet and whiting. Bait used mainly pipi.
Gear Purchased: Primus High Output two burner stove. Adventure Kings Awning 2.5m x2.5m.
Gear Review: Primus two burner stove worked a treat! Super fast to boil water for multiple cups of coffee! Make sure you turn it down when cooking food, it heats up a pan quick, and just continues to heat!! Awning was also very handy to pitch beside the tent as a home base. Look forward to using it often.
Food: A highlight. Ate like kings the first few nights. Bangers & Mash w Sauerkraut, Steak Sandwiches, Tomato based bacon pasta, pancakes, bacon and egg English muffins, fish and chips (at towns!)
Report: 7.5/10
Rating: Weather was annoying. Preferably it was the other way around. Grampians was too hot for the bush, Robe was not hot enough for the beach. Outside of this, Robe and Grampians remain some beautiful parts of Australia that need to be explored.

Robe is a great beach town, as is Beachport. The drive on the beach was unreal! Water was turquoise blue and was begging to be fished! Got stuck in the sand on three separate occasions! Sand driving was much harder than i thought, and completely different to mud, rocks, hill climbs etc. Put tires down to 20 psi, then down to 16. Should have gone down even further, as some of the soft parts of sand along the beach was SOFT. The dune driving was easy enough and enjoyable. Couldn't make it one one particular dune, made 3/4 of the way, then reversed down and tried an easier dune to get back on the track.

One night at Mt Gambier to freshen up at Colhurst House was very nice. Lovely Pub meal was horrible. Beer was great.

Grampians was spectacular. Emus, wallabies, roos, rock formations, scenery, waterfalls etc. Unfortunately it was a little too hot, and no river by the campsite to chill. Only spent 1 night at Grampians, was planning on spending 3, but the heat made it important to get kids in the car and roll home for NY celebrations.

10/10 would have been because of better weather, some fishing, some proper offroading in grampains, and NYs in grampians. Next time. Maybe when kids are older!

Licola v2

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Licola
Dates: 23rd - 26th Jan 2015
Weather: Perfect.
Crew: Toon, Willo, Ross, Sharp-Paul
Key Tracks Hit: Caledonia Tk, Dingo Hill, Mount Margaret Tk, Howitt Plains Rd
Vehicles Used: '05 Paj, '04 Pathfinder
Distance Travelled: ? 1000km?
Campsites: Wellington River Camping Area
Fishing: N/A
Gear Purchased: N/A
Gear Review:  N/A
Food: Damper, Chook, Stew,
Report: 9.5/10
Rating: Awesome area. Pinnacles Lookout was fantastic. An amazing amount of tracks, fishing, hiking, and exploring to be had in this area. You could explore for years. Got stuck on Caledonia track at some serious bog hole. Ross winched me out again. Pathfinder 2, pajero 0. Klop was fun!
Would have loved to have hit billy goat on this trip. That would have made it a dick prenokke 10/10.

Little Desert National Park

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Little Desert National Park
Dates: 29th - 31st Aug 2014
Weather: Perfect. 25 and sunny
Crew: Ross + Toon
Key Tracks Hit: Everywhere. The whole park. Moffat Tk was the best, as was the Northern Border Tk
Vehicles Used: 2004 Nissan Pathfinder, 2005 Pajero
Distance Travelled: 1000km
Campsites: Broughtons Waterhole
Fishing: N/A
Gear Purchased: N/A
Gear Review: N/A
Food: Roast Chicken + veg, Damper,
Report: 9/10
Rating: Great area! Lots of easy 4wd sand tracks to explore and learn how to drive this stuff. Heaps of wildlife, most notably emus. Fantastic place to explore. Moffat Tk had a decent waterhole that i got stuck in the mud at. Rosco snatched me out! Cheers mate!

Cathedral Ranges

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Cathedral Ranges
Dates: 20 Nov 15 - 22 Nov 15
Weather: Showers day 1 to clearing day 3. Top of 24, low of COLD at night.
Crew: VB Family + Olive Family + Buckets Family
Key Tracks Hit: Various unknown pine trails
Vehicles Used: GLX '05 Paj
Distance Travelled: 300kms
Campsites: Cooks Mill
Fishing: 1 x rainbow along river by Cooks Mill
Gear Purchased: N/A
Gear Review: Flaming Coals Spit - Cooked the pork shoulder to perfection over a couple of hours on a light bed of coals. Attached to a small waeco battery pack. Worked a treat.
Food: Pork Shoulder, Damper, Roast Breaded chicken, Pancakes, Hot dogs, Snags
Report: Quick drive up towards Cathedral Ranges via Black Spur which was all fogged up. Stacks of 4wd tracks between Narbethong and Marysville. Got into the range and set up camp in slightly dreary conditions. Good night by the campfire. Next day cooked some damper and just chilled out. Had a fish, caught a small rainbow and then went for a small 4wd around the area. Not that many 4wd tracks to be had, but lots of hiking to be done in this area. Headed home the following day on a lovely arvo.
Rating: 7.5/10

 

High country

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: alpine national park
Dates: cup weekend 2015
Weather: Showers and thunderstorms
Crew: VB family
Key Tracks Hit/Missed: billy goat bluff, crooked river, blue rag range
Vehicles Used: Mitsubishi Pajero glx
Distance Travelled: 950kms
Campsites: talbotville (or thereabouts - on crooked river)
Fishing: N/A
Gear Purchased: diy roof rack, anaconda eski, Kodiak Canvas
Gear Review: DIY roof rack worked a treat! Saved myself $1000 to make it. Easy job with buying stuff from Bunnings. 

Eski did the job. Packs well in boot. 

Kodiak Canvas tent is awesome. Great size, it rained for much of the trip and kept us dry as. Doesnt take too long to dry out in the morning before packing up too, which is a relief given its canvas to avoid mould upon packing up.
Food:  roast chicken, breakfast burritos, damper, snags, chicken sandwiches, hard boiled eggs.
Report: Got to Dargo in good time. Place was packed full of 4wd'ers ready for weekend. Drive into talbotville campsite pretty straight forward, just a downhill descent for 40 minutes. Talbotville pretty full, so crossed crooked river and found a clearing to camp at. Bloody left tent pegs at home, but luckily nearby campers helped out and have a bunch of pegs. Chilled out. 

Next day crossed crooked river. Great fun track. BOM had the river depths at 1.9m, car went through fine even with no snorkel. Got to bully goat, air down to 24psi. Paj crawled up billy goat, got good views of the pinnacles. Headed back down billy, onto crooked river and back to camp. Kings well bridge could be a nice campsite too.

Next day packed up and headed towards blue rag. Weather was crazy, climbing up into the clouds visibility was maybe 20m! Blue rag is an awesome track.
Rating: 8/10