Skip's 4x4

 

Day 7 - Saturday 20th
Broke Inlet to Black Point (364k)

Start odo 148366. From broke inlet, we headed West-ish along the very scenic Chespeake road, which is a good condition gravel road, that provides a shortcut to Northcliffe, via the dense Kari Forrest. After light refreshments in Northcliffe, we headed directly for the famous Calcup road, which took us straight into the D'entrecasteaux National Park. After enjoying the scenery and 4WDing through the tracks for a half hour or so, we arrived at the point to deflate your tyres, to the recommended 10psi (so we went a little more conservative and deflated to about 16psi, as we were heavily loaded). We then drove down the massive Calcup hill sand dune. Once at the bottom, we decided to see if we could get back up it, which is quite an ask for diesel vehicles that are loaded to over 3 tonne! First, I gave it a go, using 4000rpm in 4th low ratio, with a quick shift to 3rd half way up, and holding the revs at over 3500 (which is quite a few revs for a diesel) all the way to the top, which takes a solid minute.  I was ecstatic that I made it right up first time, but it came at a price, as my engine's temperature gauge was off the scale and I could hear it boiling. However, after about 1 minute at fast idle it was back to normal. The came Russ's turn, and he had several attempts at it, but could not get up, complaining of a "flat spot" in the diesel's rev range, so we abandoned the attempt and drove west along the beach to the Warren river mouth. At the mouth, we walked across the flowing water, and decided unanimously that it was too risky to cross over, due to the fast flowing, half meter depth, and very soft bottom, so we had to exit via Calcup hill after all! We played around along the banks of the River for a bit, and found an awesome patch of quick sand, which I almost drove into. The was so soft, that walking on it was impossible, with each footstep sinking up to my board-shorts! So we went back to Calcup. We took a different line up Calcup this time, and both made it to the half way point without any trouble (but with my temperature gauge quite high). After a short cooling period, I booted it and got within 5 meters of the top of Calcup, but managed to work it backwards, forwards, (and sidewards) for a few minutes, and got over the hump. Russ then had many attempts and could not get close to the top, and after becoming quite angry, finally decided to lower his tyre pressure to close to 10psi, and then drove straight up it. We then had a lunch break whilst our compressors worked overtime to re-inflate all our tyres to 40psi. We then headed out of the national park, up the main highway, then into the Lake Jasper turnoff. After looking around the Lake Jasper site, we decided to push on towards Black Point, as we had several mad-keen fishermen wanting to wet their lines on the last night! The track from Lake Jasper to Black point, was probably to most exciting 4WDing that we did on the entire trip. The track is not used very often, and was quite overgrown, very lush, very winding, hilly, and in places boggy, with some awesome hill climbs, which often presented themselves immediately after blind corners, giving you no runup. A few hills had to be attempted more than once (who said that!). Anyway, we finally settled down at a lovely little campsite just 100m inland from black point. Finish odo 148730

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This page was last updated on 24th November 1999