rottodiver
11th December 2011, 11:35 PM
Hey guys(and girls),
well i am home for r&r so it was time for another little adventure, so Ruth and i packed up the fridges with beer and food (and some girly drinks...yuuk). we left Friday morning and headed down to Cape Howe national park, and the section we went to on it was about 40 km east of Albany...and about 430 odd kms from home!!
We had a good run down there with only a few trucks doing there thing and being that it is such a hilly drive down there we got stuck behind a few on these hills!!
we eventually got there and set up camp at a place called Shelley beach which is accessable by 2wd gravel track... this has a camping area (quite a small one) there with a beautiful little beach that is about 1 km long between cliffs, this was where we stayed for the night and then spent the day there on Saturday watching all the hang gliders and para-gliders all jumping off the cliffs over our heads and just cruising around and then landing on the beach where we were... (these guys fill the campsite so you need to get in early, also they are a really nice bunch of people). we stayed there for the saturday night and had a great view of the solar eclipse over the ocean.
we then got up at our usual early time of 6.30ish while camping, cooked up the breakky(well ruth did) and i closed the rooftop tent up and chatted to people(i think ruth got the raw end of the deal on that one). there were quite a few eastern state travellers pulled up for the night.
Anyhow after breakky we headed off to do these tracks that have been talked about in 4wd action and on the net, boasting as some of the hardest beach access tracks.
i had the day before had a chat to the ranger about the track conditions and he drew some good mud maps of great things to see, (the maps matched my ozi explorer gps so that was easy.
we went to the sand track and let the tyres down to 17psi(which i would recommend less for people with smaller tyres).
The tracks were basically sand dunes with a single track, some being very steep and rutted and full of bog holes due to people not letting tyres down or trying to go beyond there means(hence the air lockers were triggered alot of times today).
there are heaps of tracks that go in different directions and i could see it being quite easy to get lost, i relied on the snail trail on the gps a few times, we went down to the cliff faces which are 100m plus in height made of volcanic rock from millions of years (dont quote me on "millions") and watched the waves crashing against the base of the cliffs and eagles flying around.... was beautiful view. we then went down to the beaches which were trully magnificent and also the rocks having the waves crashing against them. Torbay is also there which is the lowest point of western australias mainland!Alot of the tracks have had "converyer belt rubber" placed down to assist people climbing the dunes but this has made bits worse with people spinning their wheels on them and twisting and moving the belt!!
we cruised in and out without any real effort at all and i would expect any Patrol to do it easily!
Anyway i would recommend this for anyone wanting to get away and have a great relaxing weekend with whatever level of 4wding they choose!!
Scotty
well i am home for r&r so it was time for another little adventure, so Ruth and i packed up the fridges with beer and food (and some girly drinks...yuuk). we left Friday morning and headed down to Cape Howe national park, and the section we went to on it was about 40 km east of Albany...and about 430 odd kms from home!!
We had a good run down there with only a few trucks doing there thing and being that it is such a hilly drive down there we got stuck behind a few on these hills!!
we eventually got there and set up camp at a place called Shelley beach which is accessable by 2wd gravel track... this has a camping area (quite a small one) there with a beautiful little beach that is about 1 km long between cliffs, this was where we stayed for the night and then spent the day there on Saturday watching all the hang gliders and para-gliders all jumping off the cliffs over our heads and just cruising around and then landing on the beach where we were... (these guys fill the campsite so you need to get in early, also they are a really nice bunch of people). we stayed there for the saturday night and had a great view of the solar eclipse over the ocean.
we then got up at our usual early time of 6.30ish while camping, cooked up the breakky(well ruth did) and i closed the rooftop tent up and chatted to people(i think ruth got the raw end of the deal on that one). there were quite a few eastern state travellers pulled up for the night.
Anyhow after breakky we headed off to do these tracks that have been talked about in 4wd action and on the net, boasting as some of the hardest beach access tracks.
i had the day before had a chat to the ranger about the track conditions and he drew some good mud maps of great things to see, (the maps matched my ozi explorer gps so that was easy.
we went to the sand track and let the tyres down to 17psi(which i would recommend less for people with smaller tyres).
The tracks were basically sand dunes with a single track, some being very steep and rutted and full of bog holes due to people not letting tyres down or trying to go beyond there means(hence the air lockers were triggered alot of times today).
there are heaps of tracks that go in different directions and i could see it being quite easy to get lost, i relied on the snail trail on the gps a few times, we went down to the cliff faces which are 100m plus in height made of volcanic rock from millions of years (dont quote me on "millions") and watched the waves crashing against the base of the cliffs and eagles flying around.... was beautiful view. we then went down to the beaches which were trully magnificent and also the rocks having the waves crashing against them. Torbay is also there which is the lowest point of western australias mainland!Alot of the tracks have had "converyer belt rubber" placed down to assist people climbing the dunes but this has made bits worse with people spinning their wheels on them and twisting and moving the belt!!
we cruised in and out without any real effort at all and i would expect any Patrol to do it easily!
Anyway i would recommend this for anyone wanting to get away and have a great relaxing weekend with whatever level of 4wding they choose!!
Scotty