Day 4 – OTL Part 2

After Cannibal CK, we regrouped, and Paul & Maria, Maurie, and Geoff & Kay had caught up with us.  We all headed off through some spectacular, although rocky, bush.  This is where the comment of the trip occurred for us.  We were in the middle of negotiating a quite rocky section of the track, and Glenn made some comment over the UHF about tip-toeing through the rough stuff.  Maurie, the oldest statesman of the trip at nearly 80, in his old Defender, came across the radio with a “Yeah, not wrong.  My bottom hasn’t moved this much since the second night of my honeymoon!”.  Rolling on the floor laughing, we didn’t manage to ask why the 2^nd night, but we’re sure that’s another story.

We crossed the previously infamous Cypress Creek log bridge, which in the past had been literally a bunch of logs laying across quite a big gap (which you could walk under).  It has now been filled in totally with dirt, so no problems now.

Cypress Ck Log Bridge

From here, we came across a long, lagoon crossing.  Paul and Maria were in front at this stage, where we all stopped, got out and walked the crossing.  The water was quite deep in spots, and had a sandy / gravel base, but still seemed reasonable to do.  Paul seemed a little nervous, but still opted to go across first.  He and Maria jumped into the Discovery (towing a camper), and started across the crossing.

Lagoon Ck - the Last crossing before Nolans

Much to our surprise, and fear, halfway across they slowed, and then stopped.  This wasn’t good.  The Disco had water half way up the driver’s door, and Maria was climbing out the passengers window.  We had to assess the best way to get him out, and with no recovery points on the trailer, we couldn’t winch him out backwards, as Glenn was ready to do. 

This is where Maurie, in his old Defender, come to the rescue.  There was a very small gap between the Disco and a tree on the left.  Maurie jumped in, and drove straight across, skimming through the gap in his old Defender with only a few centimetres left either side.  Slim definitely would not have fitted through there.  Very impressive!!  We then snatched Paul out, and watched as gallons of water came gushing out when the doors were opened.  It was quite disheartening to see, and very upsetting for Paul and Maria.

With Paul trying to dry out and see if the Disco would go, we had to go across.  Glenn put on a car bra, and braved the crossing.  Side-note, the girls, as they had on all but the first Palm Creek crossing, were engrossed in a DVD, and didn’t notice the deep water crossing they were going through.  This had the extreme benefit that Amy and Glenn could concentrate, and communicate, on the tricky crossings.  Funnily, just after we had done an earlier, pretty difficult crossing, we both heard the DVD proclaim from the back seat, “We are the CAN DO BANANNA’S!!!!”.  Thanks to Bananas’ in Pyjama’s, we become the “Can do Bananna’s”

Albeit quite deep, we got through the crossing without an issue, and walked back to see how Paul and Maria were going.  The Disco would start, but as soon as the accelerator was touched, it would conk out.  Although we felt horrible for them, there was not much we could do at the time, so we moved on so as not to cause a roadblock. 

From there we moved onto the final hurdle, Nolans Brook. 

Nolans Brook

After arriving and walking up to see the crossing, we were confronted with a very deep, reasonably long crossing.  The other members who had left the day earlier were all setup, camping on the other side of the crossing, forming (in their words) a peanut gallery to view the proceedings.  They had got through without too much incident the day before, but some had definitely had water come in the cars at some stage.  Duggie, (one of the recovery vehicles) had arrived earlier that day, and had turned his Nissan into a submarine by trying to drive across, and getting stuck half way.  His car still ran fine, but was a little damp inside!!!

The arrangement was that a long snatch strap was attached to the 4WD’s, and Duggie, now over the other side, effectively made sure you got across by pulling you through.  A number of vehicles went ahead of us, and when our turn came, again the girls were engrossed in their DVD.  The call came, and off we went!!

Well.....  When you drive through water in a 4WD, there is a bow-wave that is created out front from the water being pushed along.  In this case, the bow-wave started, and then very quickly, for the first time ever in Slim, water flowed over the bonnet and splashed around the bottom of the windscreen!!!!....  errrrrrk.  WEIRD!!!!  The water behind the bow-wave was probably low to mid door level (providing we didn’t stop), but watching water bubble around the windscreen is slightly un-nerving.

It was all over pretty quickly, and we drove through no problems.  We did get a little water come in through the passenger foot-well, possibly through the hole in the firewall.  Other than that, no problems.  It was definitely an interesting crossing, and obviously capable of being driven unassisted, being pulled through was a safe way of ensuring no ‘incidents’ occurred.

We went and found a park over the other side, did a little dance, and then turned the girls DVD off.  We walked back to view the action from the safety of the ‘other side’, amongst the peanut gallery.  It was definitely interesting watching a 4WD being near submerged as it went through the crossing, and we very much enjoyed particularly seeing Maurie successfully get across in his old Defender.  We snapped a few pics and videos of the spectacular, and also found out that there was a video of us doing the crossing.  We’ll be sourcing THAT when we get back!!!!

Maurie's entry into Nolans Brook

Maurie's big splash

And still going

Another 'MySwag' member making his way across Nolans Brook

Before the last couple of members came across, we walked back to Slim to get the girls some lunch before they expired.  Whilst making lunch, we heard a bit of fracas going on back at the crossing, including someone else hooking up ‘in-train’ to Duggie to add to the snatching.  We went to have a look, and found that the guys who had been towing Paul and Maria from the previous lagoon, had hooked up to Duggie, and tried to get everyone across at once.

Half way across, the tow (middle) vehicle had done damage to their front ‘lockers’, and had also got stuck.  This meant that both them, and Paul were stopped in the crossing.  The middle 4WD was in there, but only the back corner of the ute tray was in water.  Unfortunately though, Paul in his Discovery was actually sitting in his lame duck 4WD with water up to his chest.  We can only imagine the feeling of sitting in your car whilst it tries to act like a swimming pool.  Imagine all the things you have in your car below chest level!!!!!.

They eventually got the middle 4wd out, and then winched Paul out, 30 minutes later.  They towed him up to dry ground, and a couple of the members who were diesel mechanics started working on pulling it apart, and having a look at what state the engine was in.

There was definitely a sour feeling amongst the group at that stage.  It was a huge achievement to make it through the OTL, but also disappointing for Paul and Maria.  The early group had themselves setup on the far bank, and were camping there that night.  A large number of the rest of the group had decided to setup camp around the corner at Nolan’s Brook as well, whilst a couple had left to camp elsewhere.

We had decided that the best thing for us was to move on, and start the trek down to pick up our camper so that we could have it for our 4 days camping up near the tip.  We drove the final 14kms (of easy track) of the OTL on our own, and hit the Development Road.  We then started back down south towards Bramwell Junction, and our camper.

It was a VERY weird set of emotions that afternoon.  A little surprisingly, we were overcome with a huge sense of achievement in getting through the entire OTL, pretty much in one piece.  We had held our own in the group, worked together in a hugely effective partnership, and successfully drove one of Australia’s ‘reported’ difficult 4WD tracks.  On the other hand, we were continually thinking of Paul and Maria, and the feeling of disappointment of their situation.  For such a lovely couple, their predicament was an unfortunate thorn in their holiday, and dream to do the Cape trip.  They endured the scenario admirably, with an upbeat, ‘let’s not have this bring us down’ attitude.  We definitely felt for them.

We drive 50kms south on the Development Road, which at that stage of the season, was still a very reasonable dirt road, and not too many corrugations, (although EXTREMELY dusty).  We made it as far as the turnoff to Canal Creek, and after considering whether to push on for another hour or so to Bramwell, we made the better decision to shoot back into Canal Creek and setup camp there for the night, have a swim and a beer, and re-live the day.

The access road to Canal Creek was reasonably rough, and we were remarking how we really didn’t remember this section.  As mentioned, when you are in the momentum of the group ‘rolling stone’, you don’t have a heap of time to look around and take it in.  It all come home and hit us when we drove around a corner, and.......   WHAT!!...  a creek crossing??????.  Was that there before??  Did we do that??...  Is it ok???     WE THOUGHT WE’D FINISHED.  WE’RE NOT PREPARED FOR THIS!!!.

We both sat and looked at each other.  Errr, is this right?  Do we really have to?? 

Glenn got out, walked the crossing, and noted the tree on the side with about a dozen number-plates stuck to it.  It was slightly deep, but nothing serious, and after plucking up the nerves again, we drove across without a problem.  PHEW.  Another few bumpy KM’s saw us rock up to Canal Creek, AGAIN.  It was very strange, given we’d only just left there that morning, yet SO much had happened.  De-ja-vue!!

We found our camp spot from that morning still vacant, and so parked Slim in position.  This time we wouldn’t have our close quarters neighbours, unfortunately.  We did nothing else other than get into the swimming gear, and head down to the creek with a couple of beers in hand.

A little cooling off, re-living, refreshment, and chasing the girls around the water, and then we were back to setup and cook dinner.  Glenn decided we needed a camp version of ‘take out’, and we had Baked Beans and Spaghetti on toast for the first time.  We put the girls to bed for the final time in the tent, and sat around for a bit chatting.  It was a little weird looking around, thinking of the other campers, “You don’t know what we’ve just done!!”.  Especially strange seeing as some of them were looking to do the northern part of the OTL.  We also saw people assessing the same Canal Creek crossing we had done that morning.

Canal Creek

Glenn had found that the bull bar had loosened significantly on one side, and was hitting the panel.  With all the corrugations to come, he wanted to try to fix it up.  He found the problem pretty quickly, a sheered bolt which attaches to the chassis, probably from the hit the bull bar took at Palm Creek.  He found a replacement, and tightened everything up ready for the rest of the trip.

As Glenn was lying under Slim, a couple of guys came over to see what was going one.  This is where we got to, subtly, tell someone what we had just done!!!!  Was good therapy. 

We finally settled down for our last tent sleep.  What a day!