I ask forgiveness in advance for any errors and omissions.
My memory is not as good as it used to be.
But here is my version of the trip report.
Links to pics will follow once I've downloaded them from my camera.
Myself (Howezit) and Matt (MyTroll90) met up with the mob from south of the river at the Light Horse area up Wanneroo Road.
That south mob comprised Rob (RobsGQ), Ian (Iffy) with Chris (Pfeifer), Craig (Ropes) and Thomas (2ShortGQ) with his Amorok and Ben (of Hilux fame) with his Colorado. That Colorado stood out!... The only non-Patrol and non-white at that!
So far 2ShortGQ was the only one with a camper trailer.
Richard (SPN-WRC) joined in and then we were off!
First stop Geraldton to refuel and for Rob to conduct a bit of business.
Then off to Galena Bridge where we met up with Graham and Marj (The Evil Twins). Jon (TheFlyingBadger) soon joined the growing crowd. Both ET and TheFlyingBadger came accompanied by a camper trailer each.
This was where we camped the first night, experiencing a bit of light rain during the night.
Then, on Thursday morning, it was off to Carnarvon.. the Wintersun caravan park, where Adrian (DocEvil) and Mark (Budds) were already setup. Craig (OzMerican) was with Budds.
Craig had been picked up from the airport and had a very simple schedule to keep to get back to the airport on Sunday in time for his flight out of Carnarvon. More on that later!
Aha.. some warm showers.
While we were there Chris (UKKiwi) rocked up complete with Christmas lights and Father Christmas.
Budds obviously had the Taj Mahal, so the camper trailer count increased accordingly. During the afternoon we ambled on in to the town centre and registered ourselves. This was to be the turning point in many of our lives. The T-shirts we were presented with were pink.. not a soft pastel pink, or even a reddish dusty rose kind of pink.. no.. bright pink! Enough to make us doubt our manhood. Anyway.. it did say "Gas Dash" and we were all driving Patrols, so I guess anyone watching us had to know we weren't completely weird.
On Friday morning we wandered down through the Gascoyne Junction and on to the Coonantha track which was where the Gas Dash start line was.
En route we stopped off at Rock Pool where a few of us a refreshing swim in the fresh waters of the pool.
One of us went for a flippin' long walk around the whole pool, this delaying the resumption of the journey.. but never mind..
In Coonantha we found our reserved parking with our own "4WD recovery" sign. (Well, we'll call it a sign for now..).
Up went the WPC banners and we setup for the night.
Our 6:30PM (well, 8:30PM actually) briefing eventually happened, and generally, we all walked away with less knowledge of what we were supposed to be doing than before we arrived.
But after Adrian wandered off and had another chat to the organisers he returned with sufficient info to get us on track.
So, Saturday arrived, and we split up into a few groups and hit the track. ET took Matt under his wing and between them they had a bunch of fun, including towing a Jeep out of the river, and recovering a young lady motorcyclist. Matt had the terrible task of returning this recovered maiden to the race control. Matt managed to get her name an number, but the number he got was her bike number... not her phone number! He'll learn in time what's important...
Ropes, Thomas, Jon and myself went to a different section of the river and, after chasing the manager of the local station away from the side of the river, promptly inhabited the exact same position after realising that the position was, in any case, spectator friendly and the manager could have stayed there no problem. It's so good to be in position of power with a pink T-shirt and order people off their land
Budds and OzMerican manned a different point manned a separate point.
ET, who has the best (by far) radio etiquette of anyone I know was told over the radio "We don't use 'Roger' here.. we say 'affirmative'". This may have been a simple comment by the race command office to some Patrol driver somewhere in the river, but it was the source of much mirth for the rest of us hearing it and knowing who she was talking to
Having said that, I'm sure I heard more "Roger"s than "affirmative"s from everyone including the race command guys themselves during the weekend. So I feel that ET was vindicated.
In the afternoon a few of us took a bit of a ride down the river to check out the conditions of a section of the river that was to be raced on Sunday.
Then Sunday..
We were basically spread out over about a 100 km section of river. Some saw action.. some not..
Matt and Richard managed to secure the most action by getting themselves the job of dragging a stricken quad bike (for Matt) and a stricken buggy (for Richard) for 30 kms down the river through mud.. up steep rocky inclines, around tight foresty bends and eventually out of the river. And at some serious fuel cost as well...
Rob managed to find his way out of the river by traversing some innocent private land owner's property.
Hmm.. many stories will unfold as the recollections are recollected over time..
At the end of a long Sunday, OzMerican was taken to the airport to get himself home. Well that was the plan.
ET hit the road whilst the rest of us wended our way back to the caravan park in Carnarvon and setup.
A problem surfaced for OzMerican upon closer scrutiny of his air ticket. This close scrutiny was prompted by a tightly closed airport with no airplanes, and resulted in the discovery of information that would have been obvious to a seasoned traveller.... the departure time!.. The printed copy of the ticket didn't support OzMerican's understanding of the departure time.
Ah well.. a quick call to the boss and OzMerican's leave was extended by a few days and he landed up back at the Carnarvon camp site with the rest of us.
Then Monday arrived (no surprises there) and some of the group headed off home.
Others began the second leg of the trip.
Those "others" were Rob, Ben, Matt, Richard, Iffy, Pfeifer, Jon (complete with camper trailer) and myself.
We hit the highway to Red Bluff, via a small detour to the Blowholes and Garth's Rock where a few lines were thrown into the ocean.. but nothing extra came back.
At Red Bluff the wind was blowing.. pretty hard..
So some of the softies (no names mentioned) rented a shack on the beach whilst the rest of us swagged (Iffy, Pfeifer and myself), inhabited a roof top tent (Matt) or inhabited a camper trailer (Jon).
That shack turned out to be a good thing. It offered some much appreciated shelter from the wind during the day.
Fishing started out unsuccessfully on Monday afternoon / evening.
But first thing on Tuesday the boys were up and at it and the fish were biting.
A taylor caught by Ben was the first to be eaten.. approx 1 hr from water to plate!
Later in the arvo Richard (accompanied by the rest of us) went geocaching in the hills close to where we were camped.
If you see Richard ask him what geocaching is all about. He just loves explaining it again and again!
And on Wednesday morning we packed up at Red Bluff and did the trip home in a single stretch..
Although a howling south westerly hammered us most of the way home, the trip was rounded off with a beautiful sunset off to our right as we wended our way down Indian Ocean Drive.
A great trip.
One to be repeated next year, for sure!
