well....
What a day...
We left Morwell as planned at 9:30 and headed up to Walhalla...
Did the usual tourist stuff and went and got a "miners right" and a pan (PLASTIC!!) to take on our trip and do a little prospecting on our way..
With the wild weather that we were having down in the Latrobe Valley I didnt hold my breath for decent weather up in the ranges - How wrong was I??? - Although a little windy, it was a fantastic day out in the scrub...
We gave the Deep Creek tracks a wide berth after discussing them with another mate that has done them in a well modified 4 runner..
So we took Binn's Rd from Walhalla Rd to the start of Army Track and followed that all the way down to the creek crossing at Fultons creek. We decided that this was a good spot for a bite to eat, so we set up our rugs and other stuff for the kids and had a lovely lunch in the bush...
The kids decided to do some "gold hunting" of their own and came back with numerous specimens of quartz for us fathers to have a look at... Not being a geologist myself, all of them looked alright, so we ended up taking about 2kg or so of rock home with us...
All packed up and ready to go on, we crossed the creek (6 inches deep) and headed up the spur via a number of switchbacks until we got to the ridge line... boy was it windy up there!! We followed the ridge (and hence Army Trk) all the way to Williamsons Spur track and again turned into Army Trk a little further on...
I wasnt prepared for what came next... Steep - Slippery - Shale - Loose gravel.... Hold on - Down we go.... WOOOOO HOOOO!!!!! what a great little section of track the last bit is... and onto Donnelly Crk Rd... Checked out Lloyds Hut and then continued on down to the Whitestar creek crossing for some gold panning...
We all had a few goes but unfortunately non of us had a "show of color"... And the little fella ended up soaked from falling in the creek.... DOH!!
After a little mucking around, we continued on towards the Thompson dam and went past all the usual stuff (o'tooles etc...)
After not seeing much in the way of anything on the road, there was a small branch on the road, so I called out on the radio - Watch out for the tree... hahahaha.... Round the next bend - a 2ft monster lying across the road - Shouldnt have opened my mouth!!!
What to do??? Try and cut it with my $100 GMC 12inch chain saw?? turn back? try and go over??
Grabbed the little chainsaw and like a hot knife through butter, started attacking said tree... only needed to cut a bit here and a bit there and we were able to move/drag it out of the way... and on we went...
We continued on and got to Jorgensons Hut and a bloke on a motorbike flagged us down - His 17 year old son had somehow hit a tree and was in desperate need of assistance.... we turned around and headed back to O'Tooles flats to find the poor bugger sitting on his bike unable to move his left leg... OUCH was not the word!...
We managed to get him off his bike and into the ONLY spare seat we had in the 2 vehicles and started on the painfully (literally for him) slow journey back to civilization... What would normally take about 3/4 an hour (along donnelly crk rd) from O'Tooles to the Thompson Dam took the best part of 2 and a half... every bump had the poor kid screaming in pain...
We managed to get an ambulance to meet us at the Erica pub and the 17 year old was eventually flown off (Chopper) to Melbourne... and the worst bit for his father - he had let his Ambulance cover expire a little while ago - so a $120 per year bill, has turned into around a $10,000 joy flight.... OUCH!
As the Erica pub was still open, we decided to have a counter meal for tea (Before the kids started complaining of starvation) and a good feed was had by all..
What a day...
