Navigation Trip
23/2/20
Leaders: Alan & Tonee Harlow
We met at 9.30am at the Land Rover dealership for a staggered start. Alan & Helen McRae were first off! We were all given our instructions with a plastic bag to be filled with listed items as well as 2 emergency envelopes to be opened in case of getting lost. 1st envelope before morning tea, to tell you where to meet for morning tea (very important) & 2nd envelope to tell you where to meet for lunch (finishing point).
Seven vehicles participated in the trip. There was supposed to be eight vehicles, but Ross & Sue Howell had troubles with their vehicle & decided to bunk in with Rod & Loris Catchpole, so they could still participate on the day.
The day was a beautiful day & a great day to be out exploring the countryside. The clues took us out to Tyers & heading up to Walhalla, collecting flowers & litter along the way. Some of the clues were pretty cryptic and one of the clues had you searching for a phone number on a pole about 2” wide! All the clues made you get out of the vehicle & explore the area to find the answers.
We made it to Coopers Creek camp area for morning tea, only to find that Jan & Collette Parniak had managed to get lost along the way! With no radio on board or phone reception, we just had to hope they would open the envelope to find out where they had to go! Word got back that they had been seen heading in the opposite direction to where they needed to be.
After morning tea, we all left again on a staggered start, heading across Coopers creek, doing a river crossing in low gear with our height raised & heading towards Bruntons Bridge. The dirt track was very steep but in good condition. Utilising low range to get over some rocks & manoeuvring some large ruts in the track. Once at Bruntons Bridge we needed to get out & walk over the bridge to find the answer to the next clue. We then crossed the river to start heading back towards Walhalla. Looking for answers to clue along the way. There was a lot of counting of signs and logging of km’s to know how far to go and where to turn off. We followed Brunton’s Bridge Rd on to Cowwarr Rd, which looped around to Eaglehawk Rd (one of the answers) & back onto Tyers-Walhalla Rd, which took us to our Lunch break & final destination of Rawson, where we had to find the answer to our final clue, which was the wetlands were created by a natural crater.
Alan is a very hard taskmaster & the answers had to be exact or no points! In 3rd place came Ross & Sue Howell who won Jaguar merchandise, 2nd place was Alan & Helen McCrae who won a LR drink bottle & LR hat & 1st place was Mark & Eliza Broadbridge who won a LR coffee cup, LR traveller coffee cup, LR hat & Jaguar cotton bag. The wooden spoon went to Jan & Collette who opened both their emergency envelopes, but thankfully caught up with the group for lunch.
Everyone had a fantastic time, enjoying being out in the outdoors and exploring various tracks and campsites and having perfect weather for the trip. Alan & Tonee put a huge amount of effort into putting the clues together and working out a route to go and places to meet up. Thank you Alan & Tonee for putting this trip together for club members and for making it such an enjoyable day out.
Eliza & Mark Broadbridge (Winners!! J)
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