After a short drive we found the campground, a quick set up on the lawn, and we were off in search of some tracks. By mid morning the temperature and humidity rising very quickly.
We found some tracks , mud holes and water crossings putting a holt on our forward momentum, I ended up taking off my boots and socks and waded thru some of the water crossings looking for an alternate routes to get thru.
Driving around these mountains is amazing, to get up close to see them and they are very big, it is a pretty good place to visit.
When driving these muddy tracks, it is advisable to get in the ruts especially when travelling down hill. Being very slippery when wet they act like train tracks and hold you on the track, rather than sliding off the track. If you slide sideways into any rut and depending on its depth and with enough momentum it could be enough to roll the truck.
A slow steady pace across water to create bow wave is good practice, any deeper and a blind across the front of the truck to help keep water out of the engine bay is advisable.
Why? Because when water reaches the height of you radiator fan the force of the spinning fins on the fan hitting the water can turn the fins into the radiator thats not good, it can also start splashing water about the engine bay wetting everything, very bad for petrol powered 4x4's, because wet electrics, leads, coils, spark plugs will stop you, until they dry out, alway's take a can of water dispersent such as WD-40 you may need it.
Now if the water gets much higher it can get into your air intake wet your air filter and seep down into your cylinders which will stop the truck in its tracks, petrol motor not so bad as generally the motor will stall due to its low compression.
On the other hand fitting a Snorkel to a Diesel powered 4x4 is a great idea, these motors with their high compressions do not ingest the old H2O to well, it is very very bad if the water does get in as water will not compress thus serious breakage somewhere in the motor will occur.
Once thru a creek crossing good practice is to stop on the other side if you can and let the water run back into the creek otherwise you drag some of it up the track with you creating the exit harder for the vehicles behind you to follow as they now have more mud and slippery clay to contest with.
I hope you enjoyed this part of the report, but I've run out of photos, otherwise yeah I got hot and sweaty actually I had never been so wet from sweat ever in a vehicle, I had a 3.5lt bottle of water which I finished before the day was out. Yes I did a few harder tracks when I could, did I bite off more than I could chew well maybe? I have done similar tracks before but this time I did experience car issues in regards to stalling at the worst possible moment in time and luckily to the quick thinking of Les, Steve and Greg stop me from going backwards, thanks for the help guys, much appreciated and yes I owe you a few drinks for the effort, yeah I got recovered a few times for the weekend.
The weather turned on us late Saturday afternoon early evening, rain hail wind so we went to bed a few hours later with wet feet and with no tea but we were full of chips and beer. I had a large tarp over my little tent so at least my sleeping gear was all dry, I did not surface to well the next morning tho. A fry up was in order to set things straight once more, and once full of grease I was rip rorting ready to go. We packed up camp before the rain came back and headed out again exploring some of Qld's finest bush tracks throughout the Glasshouse.
We did spend nearly a hour organising another fellows 4x4 recovery while out on the tracks as it required over 60metres of strap and chain to get this guy out of the sticky situation he was in, as it turned out he got his truck started and drove out anyway
.BEST TRIP EVER