TR: Omeo/Mt Hotham 22nd/23rd/24th Sept 2010

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El_Freddo
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TR: Omeo/Mt Hotham 22nd/23rd/24th Sept 2010

Post by El_Freddo » Sun Oct 17, 2010 7:59 pm

G'day all.

Sorry for the delay in posting this trip report - a lot has happened since this trip happened and I've only found the time now to post this up!

Subaruby Richard was in attendance as was my fiance Kez (for once!). We met up in the dark at the Blue Duck Inn and all had parma's. This pub is an awesome weather board place that's super old. It still doesn't have mains power! Crazy good food too, busy for a wednesday night considering the nearest town is 40kms away!

We headed off and decided to camp out at Joker's Flat. A couple of weeks before was the huge rain we had so everything was flowing well. This "helped" us out later in the trip :D

We got a fire going, setup camp and had a play with the cameras. Here's a long exposure of our campsite for the night next to the Mitta Mitta River by Subaruby:

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The next day we headed down to Hinnomunjie Bridge - another old bridge, probably one of the oldest wooden bridge in Victoria if not the oldest! Axe marks can still be seen where the wood was shaped into what you see today. Crazy!

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And the subi's parked up:

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Next was a stop over in Omeo for a halfa while I got a spare tyre sorted for the 27's. Thanks to Richard for this one!

We headed to Cassilis where there's an amazing old mining site that a family own - loads of relics around the place! We did some hill climbs and had a look at the entrances of some of the horizontal shafts, these are still active when the owner feels the need to do some digging! Would love to have a tour through these but would need to know some locals who know some locals to get it sorted...

Here's Subaruby near the top of the climb, its nice and rocky and was very dry which was surprising:

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Ruby Scoo and Subaruby at one of the mine shaft entrances:

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We then headed off to one of the rockest tracks I've had Ruby Scoo over. Subaruby did it easy as well... This road I presume was built for the mining era. The rockiest section is along the road where a vertical 3m rock wall has been built for the road to be able to cross a steep section of the hill, the rocks are filling where there would have been gravel or some other smooth top over the rocks. As time has passed, the rocks have become exposed to what we see today:

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We then headed back for a go at a track that is marked on the map as "Very Steep". We got this happy snap along the way:

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I have some video of the climb but its still in its very un-edited stage. It took me a good 4 minutes to crawl up this hill in low 1st. EJ got hot too and the snow has killed my little aftermarket temp guage... Need more thermo fans! Subaruby had a section where she was starved of fuel due to evaporation, its a strange thing that I think Richard has sussed out now.

Continued:
"The lounge room is not a workshop..."
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El_Freddo
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Post by El_Freddo » Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:03 pm

Here's a poser pic of Subaruby:

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Subaruby tackling the steep marked track:

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We then followed this road hoping there were no trees down. Amazing views from this ridge line and a couple of steep sections that weren't nearly as long as the initial climb were enjoyed before we hit the black top and headed up to the Hotham airport to our camp for the night.

We 4wd'd our way past the airport, it felt really long winded. Richard missed seeing me head down a chicken track past a HUGE washed out area. He had passed the point of no return with the rear trying to slip into the huge gully that was once the track. He bit the bullet and just went for it without any brakes! Make it easy thanks to the small width of the subi but it was still hairy! Wish I had taken some pics!

We got to our campsite, looking at wood on the side of the track thinking "we should pick some of this up for the fire" but we never stopped. Glad we didn't go to the effort as the amount of debris from the floods kept us warm for the night! It was amazing how much wood was already stacked around the place for us.

Here's the campsite:

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We did some fishing without any luck, got a ripper fire going (as per pic above), had some good laughs and played around with Richard's camera and "painting" a scene with the reverse mounted driving light from the back of Ruby Scoo:

The river + forest behind our camp by "painting" the scene:

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It got super cold over night - frost everywhere, a massive change from our first night which was quite barmy, I was in shorts and t-shirt all night on the first one!

We we packed and ready to move off just before 9am - quite a feat for me! We then had to tackle the track back out again. There were three sections I was worried about. Richard cruised up all the sections from what I saw, I reckon his secret weapon in the rear is what helped him out... I got stuck at one point on the second section at the top. A little bit of manoeuvring and some revving got me out. It was a great 4wd session for the morning before we loaded up with mates and headed to melbourne in convoy.

A ripper little trip out. Thank you to Richard for an awesome effort - G'town to Omeo! And thanks for the spare tyre, I wouldn't have had the 27's on if I didn't have a 5th tyre just in case. Kez it was great to have you along as well - only bailing twice is quite amazing! Hope you come around to more 4wd'n (she hates it but I don't believe her…)

And we seemed to have broken my flat tyre curse whenever I 4wd with Richard and Subaruby! Stoked about that one! Hope it stays that way...

Thanks again Richard, I really enjoyed the outing and the convoy trip home :)

Cheers

Bennie
"The lounge room is not a workshop..."
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El Freddo's Pics - El_Freddo's youtube

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