Tales from the Quim

This weekend a few of us headed to Levuka once again to run some tracks and see just how cold it gets, Guru had missed the last trip and being the Champion Monkey of the Brass, an excursion was required to lock in Levuka as the location of Brass Monkey III, to be held in the last week of July. (Yes you heard it here first).

We were on the Mt Lindesay highway by 8am and arrived at Levuka around 10am, it was a good run being so early on Saturday. There was probably 5 other groups there and we quickly found a campsite and unloaded all our stuff and headed out to try some tracks. It had not rained much recently, so unlike our last trip the tracks were mostly easy.

The bullant track was attempted by Guru and he met the same fate as ironpaw on our last trip, we also did this unnamed gully, ironpaw only just made it up with some herbs but guru and myself who only have mud tyres were not so lucky and ended up sliding back into the gully.

The gully wouldn’t have been so bad except for the lack of track so having more than one or two attempts was really just dicing with a more difficult recovery and probably some panel damage. I should really get some recovery points on the front of my truck so we can do this again. Ironpaw’s winch passed the test dragging Guru’s MQ and my family wagon out.

A good sign of the lack of rain was the consistency of the mud in the mud pit, somewhat to ironpaws demise.

 

The scenery was nice, and the cows were happy.

 

They supply plenty of firewood at Levuka, a welcome change after camping on Fraser.

 

It was not so cold, and there was a good view sleeping in an open swag under the stars.

Ironpaw has photos HERE and I have some HERE.

Mungas photos are now HERE!

115mb Video is HERE

This weekend I have spent in Sydney visiting my mate Rob and catching up with many of the crew down here. Luckily my trip coincided with the 2006 Surry Hills Festival which was held at a new location, Prince Albert park as it seems to have outgrown Crown St.

There was the usual amount of kids, dogs, freaks, hippies, yuppies, tourists, bands, market stalls and international cuisine. It seemed to me that it was relatively drug free event as there was only a few people dancing around the tacky techno dj area like they were marionettes. There was a refreshingly green smell in some areas, but drugs don’t grow on trees, right? 

There was the usual amount of kids, dogs, freaks, hippies, yuppies, tourists, bands, market stalls and international cuisine. It seemed to me that it was relatively drug free event as there was only a few people dancing around the tacky techno dj area like they were marionettes. There was a refreshingly green smell in some areas, but drugs don’t grow on trees, right? 

No glass as per usual led us to the question, is it a can or a bottle, or a cottle or a ban? I suppose we will never know, It just tasted good. 

No glass as per usual led us to the question, is it a can or a bottle, or a cottle or a ban? I suppose we will never know, It just tasted good. 

Until next year. 

Until next year. 

I’m still recovering from the effects of Mother Nature, waking up before the Sun comes up and struggling to stay awake after 8pm……..

We headed up the coast in a few groups, Che5ter, Angry and Foodie and myself headed to Noosa and then up the Freshwater track. We had a few delays with some “controlled burning” which was not very controlled and we were stuck waiting around 30 minutes for a traffic controller guy to flick the sign from STOP to SLOW. That guy is lucky we were just starting holidays because any other day the sign would have been bent around his head by some impatient campers after 10 minutes. Once we got past that it was good to hit the beach and get moving closer to the beers, we had escaped civilization :)

 

 

 

The only obstacle we encountered after the fire was a misguided Rav4 trying to get up a choppy bit of the Freshwater track, which was snatched out impatiently by Foodie. It is funny how many people get out and dig before trying to simply reverse out. While it was a bit of an annoyance it was funny to see the Rav get skull dragged up the hill, the guy had given it enough boot to make a burning smell from the clutch and for it to hit the rev limiter :D His missus didn’t look very happy after the excerise.

Most of us gathered at Inskip Point on Wednesday night to celebrate holidays and the trip with some drinks, we were the first group to arrive so we could see where we were driving, it was entertaining watching everybody get 5m into the camp site and having to air down, lock their hubs and engage 4WD to get any further, maybe we should have warned them… nah.

Fatty gained some ProCamper points early with his erection of an uber hammock-tent hybrid which was above water at high tide. We had a fire (no fires on Fraser) and started removing some of the bulky load of cold beverages from our vehicles. Jenson caught up with us in the morning and we headed over to the Island. Everybody was on time, g00l00 would have been proud.

On the trip we now had Ironpaw, Angry, Foodie, Fatty with Whopper (how appropiate), Old Boy, Povo with Rundle, Che5ter, Jenson and myself.

Once we got off the barge and had some adjustments to our load we were under way and a couple of hours later the first stop was Orchid Beach servo.

Luckily I filled up at Rainbow Beach (Who should be forced to explain why the price of fuel is 11c more a litre for only 100k’s of sealed road further). The price at Orchid is high, but when you consider how far the fuel truck would have to go up the beach and over headlands, who cares, yer on holidays. 

Luckily I filled up at Rainbow Beach (Who should be forced to explain why the price of fuel is 11c more a litre for only 100k’s of sealed road further). The price at Orchid is high, but when you consider how far the fuel truck would have to go up the beach and over headlands, who cares, yer on holidays. From the servo we had the South Ngkala rocks bypass, it was a bit chopped up at the south entrance to the bypass. OldBoys bullbar cut itself a path out of the exit (you’ll have to buy the DVD to see full motion action) which made me a nice smooth ramp which you can see here (free 2mb preview of DVD footage). My car loves me it says so with that sharp grinding sound :)

 

So after some unblockage of the bypass we all got through and formed a campsite at the Sandy Cape. Hoorah.. 

So after some unblockage of the bypass we all got through and formed a campsite at the Sandy Cape. Hoorah.. 

 

 

We all kicked back and set up, surveyed our surroundings and continued the unloading of icy beverages.

End of part one.. Photo’s available. MINE IRONPAWS WHOPPERS