Pizza & Movie Night @ Mandoon

Saturday 12^th – Sunday 13^th June 2021

Attendees:

Richard & Naomi – Patrol (Trip Leader)

Rob – Landcruiser

Simon & Jacob – Perentie

Matt – Pajero

Ivo – Landcruiser

Lin – FJ

David & Cindy – Prado

Tony & Anna – Ranger (visitors)

Shane – Triton

Lee – Landcruiser (visitor, reconnecting past member)

In contrast to previous visits to Mandoon this was to be totally a sociable event with an overnight camp, apart from a couple of things I needed to suss out for future projects with DBCA. As usual we met opposite Chequers and it seemed a bit weird taken a full-size pizza oven camping, but this was to be a major part of the night

Dave was running a bit late after doing some repairs on his CV that was playing up post Karridale the weekend before, however everyone was happy to wait around a bit longer and we got away just after our planned time anyway. We had a bit of firewood leftover from previous trips in the trailer and everyone else brought some along to add to the necessary campfire.

            We made our way into Mandoon, as we had heaps of time those who made the initial group chatted and chilled out whilst setting up their camps. One of the things I needed to check was the size of the rut in the track down to the river and see how much more it had eroded since Dave & I went down there last October.

One of the potential projects for the club will be the salvaging of this track by helping install some form of culvert to drain water across and out into the downhill side paddock, this will alleviate DBCA running a dozer down the hill and retain some of the challenge in negotiating the hill,

Once at the bottom members who had not previously gone down the hill were amazed at the beauty of the valley.

            After checking out the flowing Avon it was time to head back up to the camp, even though two of the three vehicles that went down got temporarily halted due to lifting wheels,

it was a simple case of backing off and choosing a better line. Awesome driving by Matt & Simon to get out by themselves considering neither had the benefit of locking diffs! As Dave & I were coming up the valley my phone pinged a missed call from Tony & Anna. A quick call back and I found out they were geographically challenged by turning down one track earlier than planned. No dramas as they had the sense to call for help and could tell me which track, they ended up on..

            They were not far up the park from 37 Mile Break Camp, I told them to stay put and we went over to get them. They had always planned to arrive later in the day after Anna had finished work, the good thing was they still had a sense of humour when we got back to camp. As usual the resident pyros ensured we had a full on “white fellas” fire

that could probably be seen by the Space Station. As Shane was working earlier and his beloved Dockers were playing, he arrived early evening. I also got a call from Lee to see if he could pop over as he lives nearby. As we had the pizza oven cranking out hot pizzas

everyone was fed and popcorned in no time before the movie. The movie Nobody that Dave had organized was fun & light-hearted, everyone settled in to watch it, some more so than others! At the end of the movie Shane & Lee bid farewell and set off to their respective homes.

            It was not a super late night and the rain held off which is a first for us going to Mandoon, however there was a fairly decent dew, and everything was as wet as it would have if it had rained. As usual at Mandoon the next morning was simply glorious with low lying fog in the valley and the sunlight filtering through the trees

. Everyone took their time packing up in the vein hope that somehow their canvas would dry out, plenty of coffee was consumed and various breakfasts were cooked. Seeing how Tony & Anna arrived after we got back from the river the day before they were pretty keen to go down and have a look, Matt & Dave were more than willing to take them there and to have another play on the rut. As per normal a lot of water was put on the spread-out coals to ensure our little fire was well and truly dead before we departed camp and made our ways home around midday.

I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and are happy for me to continue with the relationship building with DBCA which gives our members the chance to have access to some of these areas.

All the best

Richard Cooper