Trip: 25 to 28 Apr 2024
Anzac Day was fine and a little chilly when we departed from Williamsdale. Your trip leader was the last to arrive and as such gets to write the trip report. We had a leisurely drive down to Jindabyne where we topped off tanks and headed to Tom Groggin camp ground for lunch and airing down.
We all headed across the river without incident although Byron had a couple of goes at ascending the quite cut out climb on the Victorian side. Mackenzie’s jeep made it up without lifting a wheel, such is the articulation of a Wrangler with sway bar disconnects.
We climbed up the “easy” Tom Groggin track and then headed around to the top of the Mt Pinnibar track via the Mt Anderson Track. Mackenzie discovered that the Wrangler had a misbehaving Rzeppa joint on her front drive shaft that clicked and made noises when load was placed on it in 4WD. This was remedied by using skill to drive the majority of the climb in 2WD High range to avoid further damage. A Rzeppa joint is a type of CV joint that is on the transfer case end of the drive shafts (It’s a Jeep thing, I don’t understand)
We all arrived at the summit of Mt Pinnibar at around 16:00 and after a break headed down to Gibsons hut to find the campsite fairly full. After a quick drive to assess our options (none) we decided to squeeze in with some other campers who made us very welcome.
Friday morning most of the other campers were heading off so we reorganised ourselves and headed out to the Benambra – Corryong road via Wheelers creek logging road and headed south taking the Dartmouth track and walking around 800m down to the Greens Creek Stamp battery, one of the most complete examples of its kind left. A vigorous walk back up the hill and a lunch break later we continued down the Dartmouth track to the waters edge of Lake Dartmouth. Heading home took us most of the afternoon and we arrived back in camp just in time to light the fire and have dinner.
The original plan was to head east and maybe explore Charlies Creek and the Kings Plain Track but based on our concerns on how the Wrangler might behave we made the decision to stay three nights at Gibsons Hut and to attempt to visit the Zulu Mine on Saturday.
Departing at about 09:30 we headed out of the campsite via the logging road and turning right on to shady creek upper track for a steep drive down to Wheelers Creek where we took the Paddyjoy track and wild boar track to climb nearly a kilometer to the ridgeline , passing My Sassafras at 1587 metres and descending towards the Zulu Mine track. Unfortunately, about a kilometre down the Zulu Mine track we were stopped by a wall of foliage that prevented further exploration so we turned around, stopping to capture some views of Mt Pinnibar across the valleys and following the Zulu Ck track back to the campsite for an early end to the day at about 15:30.
Sunday we departed at about 10:00 and drove to Corryong, stopping for fuel and lunch and headed home across the Snowys via Cabramurra, Kiandra and Cooma. Those of us who had tipped Jerry cans in earlier filled up at Cooma and we made our own ways home. For anyone wondering the Wrangler performed faultlessly as long as it was in 2WD and will be getting a new Rzeppa joint in due course.
A great weekend was had by all and the weather was fantastic, apart from the frosty nights which got down to at least -3 as indicated by David’s Prado.
Authors: Ian Toten
Acknowledments: Thanks to all for a great trip and particularly to David for being tail end Charlie for the weekend.
Trip Photos, just click to enlarge…
