Four-wheel driving, feral pigs and more.....

Brendan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:54:00 GMT

Sunday I was set to go for a drive were some friends of mine out to the back of the Brindabella ranges on to McIntyre's hut and flea Creek. It was going to be a nice casual drive through the bush and checkouts and great scenery and meet some great friends.

The plan was to meet at 8 a.m. and drive off in a group however my new found puppy had other plans, as it decided to break out of its temporary bedroom and crap all over the floor of a somewhat delayed in my departure and missed the group as they headed off towards McIntyre's. Many years of driving on the Brindabella ranges have given me the advantage of knowing a few shortcuts and hopefully I was able to cut them off at the pass and meet up so we could drive together. My enthusiasm to catch up with them was a little bit over the top was only 10 km away from McIntyre's Hut I heard them on the radio and they were about one hour behind me. With this in mind I decided to press ahead and create a nice warm fire their arrival as the snow on the ground was bringing a bone chilling cold to the area.

As I realised I would have a bit of time I decided to have a bit of a scout around and just before you get to McIntyre's heart there is a turnoff that takes you down to a flat area where you can camp by the river, however being this time of year surprisingly there was no one there. One thing I did notice driving down into the valley wall around the flat areas and along the river there were massive amounts of pigs rooting where they had dished droid large areas of what was once prime camping ground. Now it was just lumps of soil and holds whether pigs had been using their snouts to dig up the ground to try and find the juicy roots of the plants lying beneath the surface.

It has been many year since I saw this type of destruction in this area and I must say it came as a bit of a surprise. I surveyed the damage for around 30 minutes before heading back to McIntyre's hut where there was also large amounts of pig damage. I quickly whipped out my flint and cost of fire started so I could sit back and do some reading on dog training techniques.

An hour so passed and just as I was expecting the arrival of my mates the National Parks ranger showed up and as with all national park rangers they don't mind a good chat. Now me being me figured this would be a great opportunity to talk about hunting and the pig destruction which I've seen around the area, and coincidentally the ranger was out laying down 1080 to try and reduce the pig numbers in the area, as they were getting out of control. He also mentioned that he was where I was the day before where he scared a mob of pigs.

Before I could get into some really juicy conversations about pig hunting the convoy which was originally out here for came down a Mountain and dissected by to my new ranger friend.

We enjoyed the fire for a little bit longer and then we headed off to Flee Creek and back home, the only problem was half way back we came across an old lady standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere. She was waiting us down assistance and after a quick conversation we realised there was 3 4-wheel drives that had slid off the trial and were down an embankment. Well I must say it was her lucky day. I whacked while hi Lux in four-wheel-drive and drove up the slippery slope while the other cars drove around accessible track.

Coming over the peak of the hill I saw seeks to weary travellers standing in the mind trying to figure out what they can do to get out of this situation, one car had slid completely off the road and was down the embankment while the other two while they were still on the road, they had little chance of going any further as a day to put also succumb to the angle and the slippery terrain. I quickly discussed my fee of a *** load of beer and I was off to work to trade these unfortunate travellers through the trees and up and over the hill.

The recovery of the three vehicles took a good few hours and required to winching sessions, and a few car to car to car snatching sessions.

What had transpired is that one car came down a very slippery hill and he slipped off the road down the embankment then about one hour later the other two cars came down the same hill and realised there was no chance of escape. Another arrow so later they ended out flagging us down at around 4 p.m. and by the time we ended at getting them all out it was well after dark, if they hadn't have come across us they were surely going to spend a very very cold night in the snow-covered ground.

Once again this is a good example of people going out into the elements without any consideration of one things might go wrong, these guys didn't even have one blanket between the six of them and one guy was wearing thongs, I have personally slept out in the Brindabella ranges on a very cold and wet night because of a failed battery in my truck and it is something I don't want to repeat without a blanket again.

All in all the trucks were extracted safe and sound with a few scratches and no other injuries to personnel. And I must say these guys were extremely happy that we help them out. We told them that they can keep their beer and that the only payback is to help someone else out if they come across them in the same situation.

Just as an update to this blog here is some YouTube footage of the days events.

The first one is me trying to climb a very slippery hill and forgetting to engauge 4WD... The someone reminded me that there is this little lever that you can use to help get up hills like this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNbUC0_VgM

This video is of one of the trucks that slipped off the road after we had dragged it up the slope closer to the road that it slipped off.

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Four-wheel driving, feral pigs and more.....