The Old Telegraph Track 7th – 10th July 09
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
In the morning we left Bramwell Station for Bramwell Junction which is another camping area and a fuel stop. The OTL starts right here from behind the fuel pumps here and winds its way off into the bush. We fuelled and ‘iced up’ and set off on the no longer maintained OTL. The OTL is approximately 116kms long and progress is - as you would imagine on an un-maintained road is - fairly slow.
There are 14 River crossings in total on the 4x4 only track, only 1 has a bridge (a very rickety looking one) all the rest have to be crossed by driving through the water along the river bed at designated crossing points. All the crossings presented their own unique challenges and one of them is so notoriously difficult (Gunshot Creek) there is a bypass for it!
We took 4days/3 nights on the track and I am now going to bore you with a detailed account!!
Day 1:- The Beginning
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
We had only been driving on the track a matter of metres before we had our first slice of excitement. A Black Headed Python had slithered out into the road between OJ and Sandy & Elliott’s (S&E) car. These snakes are not dangerous to humans and it was great to see one in the wild.
The road quickly became very rutted and we were keen to get some pics of the cars in action (after all this part of out trip was all about the drive!). We got our first view of S&E’s car ‘popping a mono’ as Elliott put it. This is when one of the wheels is no longer in contact with ‘Mother Earth’ due to a very uneven road surface.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
I am going to get a little technical here but it is relevant as you look through the pictures. S&E’s 4x4 has leaf spring suspension, OJ has coil spring suspension. Coils are a lot softer and less rigid; therefore OJ can keep all 4 tyres in contact with the track a bit easier, the downside is however that OJ will sit a lot lower under a heavy load. The pics below show that OJ didn’t even ‘pop a mono’ during this part of the track whereas S&E’s wheel was at least 6 inches in the air.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
Ok technical stuff over for now – we didn’t have to travel much further down the track before we came to the 1st river crossing - Palm Creek. We parked up and walked over to the crossing and were greeted with the site of a 4x4 facing us stuck at the bottom of our entrance point. Admittedly he was trying to do it the hard way by doing the track North to South, but it was still a little unnerving to see them there. It kinda meant once we had gone over the edge into the crossing, there was no turning back!
Turns out the guy was going to winch himself up the embankment but his winch was not working. Elliott ended up pulling him out to clear the path for us to get down.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
The drop off was steep and hard bottomed, I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about getting down.
We went first Heidi was down the bottom ready to take pics and I was the driver. I popped OJ into low range and crawled top the drop off, remembering my training I kept my foot away from the clutch and feathered the brakes in 1st gear.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
Once OJ started the descent I was basically a passenger and could do nothing much to slow her down until traction was regained at the bottom. It was a strange sensation but all in all was completed fairly comfortably – Thank god we did the training course! The river itself was not deep and I crawled up the opposite bank (which was a lot less steep) and waited for S&E. Elliott followed my path and we were through with no problems. Woo Hoo first crossing done and we were pumped – on to the next...
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
It was only a few minutes on the track and the next crossing was ahead of us – Ducie Creek, which the book described as muddy and deep. There were no steep banks like the last crossing, the water was lapping gently onto the road as we approached. Elliott jumped out of his car excitedly and began walking the creek. It got deeper and deeper until he was up to his waist! Uh oh we thought, that is pretty deep, he then walked left and discovered it was much shallower around the edges of the crossing. OJ is petrol so the shallower part was gonna be for us. S&E’s car however is diesel and Elliott got Sandy to drive right through the middle for fun. Sandy drove at a good speed and the 4x4 lunged down into the deep part, water almost went up onto the bonnet before she emerged the other side. Water was draining from the underside of their car and Sandy had a big smile on her face! – It was pretty deep!
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
Heidi and OJ were next and she picked me (the photographer) up half way across and Elliott took the rest of the pics from the other side. (We had already agreed that we would swap piccies at the end of the adventure) The wider shallower route was fairly simple and we completed the crossing easily.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
The bank on the far side was quite steep and had some pot holes near the top. There was an easier way up but we decided to have a play in the pot holes on the tougher option. Sandy was up first and when she neared the top and gave it a little power she ‘popped a huge mono’!! You could see the whole underside of the car the wheel must have nearly been a metre off the floor – it was a very impressive sight!
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
Heidi had a go and OJ got a little air but nowhere near as much as Sandy. Heidi then turned to me and asked if I wanted to drive back down and have a go. I thought why not, problem was I came back up the hill on a different line and OJ slipped into the holes at the wrong angle.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
Instead of getting a little air I got a loud BANG and a scrape. I carried on to the top and got out to inspect OJ for damage it was loud and I was sure I had broken something!! It took a while to find it but when we did it was clear what had happened. OJ had slipped onto her sills and there was a nice little dent to the body work on the underside – Oooops!!
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
I was not a happy bunny at the time, very disappointed to have damaged the car. Now I think of our little war wound as a cool “trophy” from the OTL!!
After the fun at Ducie it was 23kms of very rough uneven dirt road before crossing number 3 – Dalhunty River.
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
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| From Old Telegraph Track Day 1 |
We opted not to cross this one this afternoon, instead we camped up and went for a swim in the gorgeous river there. We played in the waterfall which was good fun. It may be the middle up winter up here but temps were always around the 30C mark and the sun was shining bright. Getting into the river with a cold beer was heavenly after the excitement of the day, we just sat there for a while reflecting on what we had seen so far and what an amazing adventure we had had already. Little did we know the best day was still to come.
