Mundaring off the Powerlines, May 2023
Participants:
Roger – Toyota 76 Series Landcruiser , Shane and Tony – Toyota Prado, Simon and Diane – Mitsubishi Triton
Peter and Janet – Ford Ranger, Steve (Burgo) – Toyota 200 Series Landcruiser,
The trip started with a meeting at the entrance of Flynn Road Mundaring, Shane took the opportunity of trying out his new Carbon winch, which worked perfectly and was able to be hand spooled.
Following a drivers meeting, the group headed off down the power line track eventually coming to a severely eroded white clay section of the track. This section has some really big holes, causing your vehicle to just drop into a near vertical hole, then continuing through a series of big offset holes before getting down to the bottom of the hill.
Turning off the powerlines, the group headed off on a new route which was quite narrow at times, especially for the bigger vehicles such as the Cruisers and Patrols. Everyone managed to get through without any bruising encounters with the fauna although it was pretty close at times for the 200 series Cruiser.
Heading uphill was my greatest concern about this trip, this particular section of the track is rough and rocky, with no chicken track options, once you start … you are committed. Thankfully everyone made the hill without any serious issues which pleased me because it is difficult, with big rock steps and washouts. After a short break we travelled along the bitumen road for a short distance before once more engaging 4wd and hitting a rutted uphill track that would take us along some forest roads that were quite challenging in places.
Coming to a pine plantation, we exited onto another uphill track which went around a new plantation of pine trees moving up the ridge line, giving us a view of the surrounding areas, you wouldn’t know you were relatively close to Perth. Travelling through this bush was a challenge, the track became very narrow in places but thankfully the trees were green and so didn’t scrape the vehicles.
The next downhill section was also another challenge with no chicken tracks, so everyone was committed to the deep ruts and rocky downhill track. Exiting the track onto Gorrie Road saw us encountering a couple of trail bike riders who were surprised that we were going to attempt a track that they had struggled to come down. We found the track interesting, it was wide but had a lot of loose rocks and was also very dry which surprised me after the recent rain, I was expecting this part of the track to be wet and soft and would be a real challenge but it was relatively easy. Arriving at the top of the hill, the track ended and we looked for somewhere shady to have lunch.
Thanks to everyone who came, hats off to everyone who drove because the trip was rated at 3 to 4 so it was challenging and yet we didn’t need to do any recoveries and no vehicles were damaged. Interesting all vehicles were diesels and we had a great mix of different vehicles and suspension setups that all coped with the terrain.
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