This year we decided to hold the Lewana Trip on a long weekend. The ownership of Lewana had also changed, so I was a bit unsure on how it would go.
Half the group travelled down earlier on Friday and I led the remainder of the convoy down at 7:30pm. After stopping at Bunbury for fuel we arrived at camp at around 10:15pm. We had 27 people in 4 cottages so we were very comfortable. Some stayed up partying and the rest went to bed around 11pm. The forest and the road were damp so we went to bed looking forward to interesting driving.
We formed up at 9am and 10 cars headed off.
As usual we travelled to the west first. The terrain was interesting but not too bad. Peter overheated his engine when his electric fan failed but managed to get it running ok with the air conditioner electric fan – lucky it wasn’t a hot day. I got stuck when the track disappeared under my right wheels. We decided it was best for me to winch myself forward to avoid damaging the side of my vehicle which was leaning on the ground. Jim showed Christine how to connect the tree protector and winch rope – which would come in handy on Sunday.
We made it back to camp for lunch and because it was a long weekend we had me for a relaxing lunch break.
As usual we next headed to the North East side of the river. We found lots of wet and slippery tracks. The first real challenge was a long slippery hill climb. I made it up without spinning a wheel but the remainder of the convoy with road tyres found it quite challenging. Jim and Sandra slid backwards at least 20 feet with no grip. But they recovered and a while later made it up by using more momentum. Garth and Hollie then had some engine trouble, it wouldn’t run, so I towed them back to camp. It took Garth only a few minutes to realise that the lower radiator hose had blown off the radiator. Thanks to Toyotas being tough and more than a bit of luck, once the engine had been refilled with water it ran again.
Saturday night was a quiet night for most apparently, as I went to sleep at 7:30pm so I can’t tell you if anything interesting happened.
On Sunday morning we headed to the South East side of the river. This area was quite dry but we found some interesting tracks including one where driving slowly and carefully I ended up getting stuck on an angle across the track. Again it was best to winch myself. As we had to reposition the winch anchor point a few times to get up the hill, Christine is now an expert at installing the tree protector and connecting the rope. Note the hill is much steeper than it looks in the photo.
There are a couple of videos on Facebook showing Peter going up the hill much faster to avoid the same issues. Jeff and Dave also made it using more momentum than I did.
Peter was the only one brave enough to cross the river at the flooded causeway. The rest of us enjoyed watching.
After a stop off at look out hill, we made it back to camp for another relaxing lunch.
After lunch the diehards headed out again. We went back to the Northeast side of the river and finished the tracks we had not completed on Saturday afternoon. All went well for those with mud tyres. Steve had to winch the Hilux up one slippery hill. The group then informed me they were up for a night run. So I headed for Nannup to get more fuel and a few headed to the Nannup Hotel for dinner. On the way it rained for two hours.
At 7:30 the diehards headed out for the night run. We went back and we did the most interesting tracks. Only now the tracks were super slippery from the recent rain. Steve was the first to come unstuck. He was following me too closely to speed up and lost traction. He then slid backwards o the side on the track into the pine trees and in the process he ripped o the drivers side wing mirror and dented the front mud guard. We then used his winch to pull him back onto the track and up the hill. Thanks to Paul who then attached the winch rope about 10 times to enable Steve to pull himself to the top of the hill. Paul only had his iPhone as a torch. He showed a lot of dexterity being able to hold the iPhone and use both hands to feed the tree protector around trees and attach the winch rope in the pitch black night without dropping the phone or slipping over. I had a head lamp but needed to look into Steve’s bullbar to engage and disengage the winch and check how the rope was spooling.
Everyone was still keen so we headed off to tackle the wettest track. I just made it through the deepest hole so Steve wisely decided not drive into it with the smaller wheels on the Hilux. Jeff went next and he just made it through. Then David went next and got stuck in the deep ruts. Unfortunately the water was almost deep enough to come in through the doors. Jeff pulled him out fairly quickly. This was a challenge as the track was overgrown with blackberry bushes. Peter got through with the bigger wheels and then Jeff slipped into a rut and got struck. David returned the favour by pulling Jeff backwards out of the hole. So we were a bit wet and damp when we returned to camp at 10:30pm.