Thought you guys might enjoy some of the pics from the weekend outing - this area is about 100 miles north of Sydney.

The area is an interesting mix of very slick clay, steep hills and lumpy rock climbs.

 

DAMN!!!! That looks like a good time.... Thanks for sharing.

 

It was mostly a good weekend, hampered by a few electrical failures and a broken shock mount...

 

Holly chit thats a break right there awsome pics man

 

WOW !!! those are some great pics

 

Uhhhh, how do I say this politley.......uhhhh......your rear axle is pointing in the wrong direction and your lug nutz are showing.

 

that is a shitty break, great pics

 

The angle actually sheared the pinion axle on the front of the diff, it got stripped down on the trail and driven home in front wheel drive!

 

The plan was to do the trail and then camp out in a nearby camp site, but things ended getting a bit more complicated.

We made up to the big rock that is in several of the shots (known as locally as Buttcrack) with about an hour of daylight left, and thought that the plan was going well as the there was only one 400m climb left to the end of the trail....

However the electrics on the yellow TJ in the night photo packed up halfway through winching it over the rock, and there it stayed for the next few hours as other vehicles in the group started to fail:-
- The first TJ sent to snatch it up overheated, cracked it's radiator and had to be winched/dragged a few hundred yards up the hill to a small clearing
- The next TJ that tried to use it's winch to pull it over, also suffered alternator failure and I ended up winching it backwards up the trail to the clearing before heading back down with the JK to rescue the first TJ so then the last couple of Jeeps could make it over the rock.

This took us to about 11:30 at night, with 3 broken jeeps...then it started to rain which turned the last climb from driveable to slick clay that required winching...given two electrical failures this just wasn't going to happen so we pitched camp on the trail.

The rain continued the next day, and that last 400m climb took nearly 7 hours to complete, during which time the black TJ in the photo with the broken shock mount sheared the pinion out of the rear diff as the axle rotated through 80 degrees!

By the time we'd rebuilt the rear diff enough to make it driveable, albeit with front drive only, we were back to midnight again....and then still around 100 miles from home...the trip finally got back to town at 2am on Monday morning.

 

OUCH! sounds like a rough trip for TJ's. Oh well, If you don't expect to break something, then you shouldn't try.

Great pix though!