Trip Report: Prospective Members Trip to Zig Zag
Hi Guys,
The following people attended the trip.
Members
1. Mani @ TRBN8R
2. Gene @ GBREDNYA
3. Will T @ WILL98
4. Jonh & Di @ ISHERS
5. Andy & Charl @ REDRUBI
6. Dave @ DOBBO56
7. Marty @ MARTY84
8. Richard @ RICHHENNING
9. Steve & Hayley @ JEEP11
10. Piero @ PEO
11. Rob @ UNCAGED123
Visitors
1. Dylan @ DY2707
2. Mark @ FuzzFrazer
3. Daniel @ Daniel Djuracic
4. Greg & Jo @ KegsyJK
5. Jai @ Runtskies
6. Bill @ JKBill
7. Sean & Daphne @ SeanC
On Sunday the first group comprising of myself, Andy & Charl, Dave, Marty, Steve & Heyley, Piero, Dylan, Greg & Jo and Jai met up at Richmond McDonald’s at 0715hrs. I received a phone call from Rob advising us that he was having some battery troubles and will catch us at Zig Zag. After the meet and greet, convoy procedure briefing and customary coffee at the Meccas we departed at 0745hrs. We reached Zig Zag at 0900hrs and were met by the rest of the crew. The Jeeps were a mix of JKUs and JKs and on WK2 Grand Cherokee. Level of mods varied from brand new stock JKU to Gene’s monster JK with all the options ticked off. The weather at Zig Zag was a bit cold and the terrain had evidence of light to moderate rain in the couple of days preceding the trip .
By the time we aired down and disconnected Rob arrived at the parking lot. We were about to move and we had to do the first recovery in the parking lot. Rob’s battery refused to co-operate. We jump started his jeep from Daniel’s WK2 and were on our way by 0930. We arrived at the Wombat holes and had some interesting time with Rob catching some mud in the bead and Daniel in The Grand Cherokee lifting some wheels in the air. John took some chrome off his front bumper when he made contact with a pile of mud. We all got through the wombat holes and proceeded to The Pipelines. While taking the stock cars towards the bypass we noticed the top step on the bypass a bit more dug up than usual and sticky white clay on the climb up to it. A good number of cars in the convoy were running road tyres and the mud would have quickly turned them into racing slicks. That could lead to a loss of traction and possible damage to the cars and the track. A decision was made to turn the cars around and give The Pipelines and the Bypass a miss and head on to The Lost City. While turning around Sean in the Silver JK misjudged a turn and his front end slid a bit down the hill putting him at a precarious angle. Under Andy’s military expertise and great help from Rich in the red JKU and Dylan in the yellow JKU, Sean’s Jeep was stabilized and gently turned around with nil damage to the track or the Jeep. It was 1130hrs by now. From here we took the dirt road to The Lost City. Some puddles on the way were used by the guys to give their Jeeps a splash. Steve slipped a belt off the supercharger on his JK and the guys on the tail end helped him put it back on. We got to The Lost City about 1215hrs. We had lunch there and soaked in the spectacular views. On the way back we took a detour to the left going through what is known to me as Ranger Bob and Son of Bob track. The first one turned out to be interesting as the line that appeared to be the hardest turned out to be the easiest due to ample traction on the rocks. We all got up them eventually with the track claiming one of the side steps on Will’s JK giving him an excuse to ask Santa for a set of rock sliders for Christmas. There were another couple of recoveries with newer driver missing the line by a few inches. Nothing Gene’s JK standing up the hill couldn’t pull out with 3 snatch straps tied up together. Son of Bob after this was an easy affair with everyone making it up the hill without any dramas. We started driving up to the second set of wombat holes and we found the normal track washed out due to the recent rains giving us a very tight and complicated area to drive on. Again we took the bypass track to drive up to the wombat holes with only me and Rob driving through the complicated section. Rob caught some more mud in another one of his tyres. We got through the wombat holes with some cars needing minimal spotting. Rob rolled a complete bead on this track. Guys on the tail end helped Rob change is spare wheel in place of the one with the rolled bead. He still had one leaky bead which Andy temporarily fixed using a can of WD40. It was already 1530hrs by now and we decided to head home from there. We decided to call it a day here and while we were waiting for Rob to swap his tyres the rest of the crew aired up and connected their swaybars. We split the group a few Ks from the carpark with one group heading off to Lithgow through State Mine Gully Raod and the other group heading to the carpark. We got to the carpark by 1630 and were on our way home after saying our goodbyes by 1700hrs.
Damage: Broken side step on Will's JK and very negligible sill damage. John & Di broken chrome bars on the front bumper.
Cheers and Happy Jeeping!!!!
Mani :)
