BLC April 2017

Our April BCL meeting commenced with our starting point round up at Spotlight carpark in Queanbeyan for a “brisk” departure of 10:00am. Due to the busy April trip schedule the attendees steadily whittled down to 3 interested parties – John & Jeff meeting in the carpark with Debbie catching up with us at the Bungendore Woodworks café. Following refreshments we then proceeded to Kaylene and Paul’s property, Chatsvale, located 30 minutes north west of Goulburn. Clearly a hybrid BCL with a mix of coffee, overnight camping and a bit of 4 x 4 driving around the property was set to be had.

Upon our arrival we set about setting up camp. Jeff and Debbie were finished in 5 minutes (preferring to sleep in their vehicles). The other member (John) provided easy entertainment to the others watching over a cup of tea as I  struggled for 50 minutes to set up an overgrown tent designed for 2 as a minimum. Time to reconsider the “single person touring tent” arrangement – John!.

Kaylene and Paul cheated by previously setting up their comfortable camper trailer in a prominent position. Upon completion of the camp tasks we had the opportunity of being escorted around the 100 acre property with Kaylene at the helm of the 4 X 4 tractor. The convoy started well as we headed downhill but became more interesting as I engaged the Discovery 2’s  Hill Descent Control – what a racket! I immediately turned it OFF and used the brakes! The tractor was moving too slow in any case. Our first 4×4 excitement occurred when Jeff’s Toyota Troup Carrier got caught on a swale cross over by the rear towbar and required a little pull from the Discovery to get going again.

We proceeded up the hill and looked at a civil engineering masterpiece created by some very aggressive wombats who decided to try and tunnel through to Goulburn! Looked like hard work but it explains why they look like they do (sort of miniature under-boring machines)!.

Our procession came to a halt when we crossed a mud patch caused from the next door neighbours leaky dam. The tractor and Discovery made it across just fine but for some reason the Toyota caught a case of slippery tyres and stopped mid crossing. Again the Discovery came to the rescue and eventually towed it up the embankment and up the hill as the Toyotas tyre pattern were full of mud and refused to attain a descent level of grip.

Back at the campsite with the fire pit full of timber I made another great camping discovery. That is – Do not erect your tent directly downwind of the fire pit specifically when the wind is a continuous breeze coming from a single prominent direction. (Actually could have used the tent as a smoke house!)

The morning brought the weather change that we experienced in Canberra. After a leisurely breakfast we packed up our camp (John needed help as he was running the risk of becoming a camping parachutist with the removal of the blasted fly which is pretty close to the size of a double garage!). The trio then headed to Taralga for morning tea where we bade farewell to Debbie who needed to expedite herself back to Canberra to prepare for her deployment on the Monday to Lismore as part of the volunteer RFS taskforce sent to help with the clean-up of the mess caused by Cyclone Debbie.

Jeff and I continued our leisurely trek through to Crookwell, lunch at Boorowa and back to Yass and Canberra. Arriving just in time to get a complete wash-down by the ensuing storm.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable and informative time had by all (certainly by me – I finally got to use my CDL and HDC and got some recovery experience in the process).

John Raineri