Off the beaten track on the weekend .

[Sunny43.5]

Took my wife and kids for a special weekend away , was the first chance to see how the van would perform with a load on a variety of roads . We went to the Spring Creek Mountain Cottages on the top of the Great Divide range southwest of Brisbane .Its right on the border so we travelled some dirt roads single lane bitumen and tried our luck at the Condamine River 14 crossings road . It meanders over the river 14 times in a deep gorge but alas because ours is lowered we had to bail at the first crossing because there were some large boulders in the water . The van performed great even over some corrugated sections and the plentiful cattle grids , the traction control really helps in steep uphill dirt keeping the van straight . This shot next to the Rabbit Proof fence along the border [yes we Queenslanders don't want those wascally wabbits on our side of the fence . parked off the side of the Condamine River Rd and whilst taking the shot nearly stood on a Red Belly Black snake in the grass , if you look close you can see cow sh*@t splattered near the front wheel . First crossing and we bailed too many rocks did not want to take a chance considering VW left off under body engine sump guards on the new T5's . Sorry the text has been splattered as well !!

[Syncrotek]

Nice one Howard, always great to get out of the big smoke, how did the family go, did
they like the weekend away ?

[Sunny43.5]

Yes it was fun for all of us although because the two kids are in wheelchairs we were only able to take them to one of the waterfalls in the area . But any time away from home is always a treat , I suppose if we had the van at standard height we may have seen more of the river gorge area, it has a Bilstein suspension which has lowered it 40mls and is running on Federal Formoza tyres . I was very happy with its ability to give a smooth ride even over many corrugated sections and we did cover around 100kays in the dirt one afternoon . I haven't had the chance to see how good the seals were in keeping the dust out of the inside but will be checking .

[Transporter]

It looks like a great family day trip. It's good to see that the 2WD T5 is capable on dirt roads.

[Sunny43.5]

Yes I find that the TCS system helps in many different scenarios , if its raining hard you can see it kick in when either front wheel loses grip and as experienced in our older T5 it crawled its way out of a boggy wet dirt road with a trailer attached when other cars had to be towed !!

[Paradox]

That is a nice part of the world Sunny. I know the area well and walked much of the mountains you see from the cottages in days gone by.

We have a weekender on 100 acres in the mountains about 10 mins from Killarney.

That Condamine River Rd is definitely 4wd (clearance) only, large boulders in pretty much every crossing. It always awe's me that the little creek on that road is the very start of the Condamine river and one of the longest river systems on the planet - the water in it eventually hits the ocean in SA.... ....the White Swamp road into Spring Ck is a lot of fun, although I always found the Head road down the escarpment more scenic. I think it is still closed though - has been since the big floods of a few years back.

[Sunny43.5]

This will make you laugh Paradox , we tried to get up via the Head Rd on Friday but found it closed hence we had to detour into northern NSW eventually rejoining the Head rd via White Swamp Road we even tried to get to the Teviot Falls from the other end but the barrier stopped us again . Then we decided to return home via Cunningham's Gap on Sunday so as not to go back over the same road , then Monday morning received an update from the owner of the Cottages that the bloody Road was reopened 6am Monday morning after 16months of closure due to landslides . Typical . Yes agree the road from the start of the detour was a lot of fun even though it was dirt all the way lots of cattle grids cow patties and crossing into enemy territory several times over the Rabbit Fence on the border , they even have surveillance cameras at one of the crossing's .

[Paradox]

Great, good to know that is now open

Fun story relating to rain and landslides in the area...

We headed up to our property Boxing day of the year of the Wivenhoe/Brisbane flood. Got to the top of Cunninghams Gap and it was teeming down, really bucketing and had been for a few hours. At the top I stopped and called our neighbors who overlook the creek we are on and confirmed the creek was rising fast and impassable. Turned around and headed back down the range to see massive waterfalls and rocks coming over the cliffs where the big containers full of gravel now are...got to the bottom and saw emergency crews setting up to close the road where half the road had slumped down the hill. They shut the road behind us and it was not opened again for a number of weeks after they got a temporary bridge in. They have only just recently finished rebuilding the road properly.

We headed back to Brisbane and at Aratula a Police car pulled out in front of us and we followed it to Warrill View where about 200m of the highway had water flowing across it and rising....police car went across and as I was in a Cruiser had no problem following him. At the far side he pulled across the road and put his lights on.....Highway closed.....if we were 60secs behind we would have been stuck.

We got to the property 5 days later but had to go the Head Road which miraculously was the only road still passable. I know I was the first up it though as I had to clear trees to pass and the river crossings the bottom were only just safe to negotiate.

It took me over 3 hours to negotiate the last 1km into our property as the creek crossings were gone. The last crossing had water over the bonnet of the cruiser....full on adventure time