Lewy_88
Active Member
First attempt at Monkey Gum and it lived up to the hype. We had a convoy of six cars, all but two had driven it before.
We set out from camp Sunday morning heading from Wombat Flats area up to the top. We were expecting to be up at the lookout roughly lunch time, but the traffic on the trail made it an all day affair.
The recent record rainfall meant that some of the little creeks leading towards the start of the main section were completely washed out and were quite a challenge. One main one was near vertical on the exit and needed a couple of maxtrax in the drivers side hole and then a hole heap of right boot to make it out. Footage was cool from this section.
Once we reached the river crossing which signifies Monkey Gum proper we had to wait for a good 20mins for a group infront to get around the first corner. They seemd inexperienced and had about 8 cars. The very next corner, it was the same story. But this time worse in terms of their 'recovery techniques. Kids standing near snatch straps under load was the last straw for us. We gave them a couple of words of advice and walked away. Accident waiting to happen.
We ate lunch and waited until they had moved on. We let 3 very capable patrols pass us and enjoyed the view as they flexed their way along one of the large and long erosion gullies. Our cars of varying capability chose very different lines and made our way to the major rock feeaturenear the end of the track. Again the patrols showed us how the hard line is done, the rest of us used the other two options.
At the top we picked one of the big mud holes to have some fun in and got some nice slo mo footage and had a laugh. All in all, Monkey Gum is a committing track, and you need to prepared with recovery gear, and the possibility of doing damage to your rig.
We set out from camp Sunday morning heading from Wombat Flats area up to the top. We were expecting to be up at the lookout roughly lunch time, but the traffic on the trail made it an all day affair.
The recent record rainfall meant that some of the little creeks leading towards the start of the main section were completely washed out and were quite a challenge. One main one was near vertical on the exit and needed a couple of maxtrax in the drivers side hole and then a hole heap of right boot to make it out. Footage was cool from this section.
Once we reached the river crossing which signifies Monkey Gum proper we had to wait for a good 20mins for a group infront to get around the first corner. They seemd inexperienced and had about 8 cars. The very next corner, it was the same story. But this time worse in terms of their 'recovery techniques. Kids standing near snatch straps under load was the last straw for us. We gave them a couple of words of advice and walked away. Accident waiting to happen.
We ate lunch and waited until they had moved on. We let 3 very capable patrols pass us and enjoyed the view as they flexed their way along one of the large and long erosion gullies. Our cars of varying capability chose very different lines and made our way to the major rock feeaturenear the end of the track. Again the patrols showed us how the hard line is done, the rest of us used the other two options.
At the top we picked one of the big mud holes to have some fun in and got some nice slo mo footage and had a laugh. All in all, Monkey Gum is a committing track, and you need to prepared with recovery gear, and the possibility of doing damage to your rig.
