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Bathurst and beyond

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Toddyh03 Profile
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Date Registered: 08-2011
Location: Lalor Park, NSW
TOTAL POSTS: 1663

Bathurst and beyond

This is a bit of an essay so read if you dare.

I needed to get out of town for a bit so I packed up the car and the dogs, took a couple days off work and headed west. I headed out to Bathurst where of course I had to do a quick lap around Mount Panorama emoticon

Conrod Straight

Anyway that was enough of the bitumen so I headed north the Bridle Track. I was aware that its blocked/closed at Monaghans Bluffbut thought it might be worth a look anyway.

Long story short after approx 15km I was still on paved road, so I got bored and turned around to head to Fremantle Road.
Fremantle Road starts as bitumen then turns to an easy dirt/gravel road. I headed north through some cows being moved along the road to Root Hog Fire Track.

This track starts up the top of a mountain and winds down to the Macquarie River.

An old car (possibly a mini) was down the bottom but obviously never made it back up

There is heaps of camping options on the sandy river banks. The sand is soft but fairly shallow so no need to air down the tyres.

This is the crossing over Macquarie River to The Bridle Track

I didn't cross over because I was alone and there is some large rocks along the curved crossing. It was a cold night down on the bank and I woke up covered with fog and checked the temp on the car

Cooked up brekky and headed back up Root Hog Fire Track. It's a steepish climb but the road is in good condition. May be a bit more difficult in the wet but still very doable.

Once up the top I could still see the fog sitting in the valley where I camped

I head back along Fremantle Road and turned onto Gowan Road which is a good condition dirt road

and on to Lower Lewis Ponds Road towards Ophir.

Ophir is a public recreation reserve. Its basically a giant 4wd playground with steep climbs and creek crossings. As I was by myself I stayed away from the more serious stuff but still had a great time. This section is a '4wd only' path and there is a 2wd track around detour around.

It was actually alot steeper and rockier than the photo shows.
Down where the track leads is a little playground. I had a quick go at a little hill. Very very steep and really good fun.

Back out to Lower Lewis Ponds Road, it lead down to a public camp/picnic area. This was a really pretty spot.

there was also a little creek crossing over to a more secluded spot

I then headed north towards Long Point Road

The road is in good condition and winds down to the Macquarie River.

The Macquarie River crossing is approx 50m wide and in a very pretty spot. Would be a great spot to spot for a picnic in Summer. Even now it was quite nice in the sun.

The crossing:

The crossing was approx 1/2 to 3/4 wheel deep. I tried to take a movie of the crossing and the climb out but the quality is pretty bad.

This was the view from the top of the climb on the far side

From here I headed towards Hill End and stopped by a couple of the local attractions including the Cornish Roasting Pits

and the natural arch

Then on to Hill End

I had lunch at the Royal Hotel. It was a really good feed especially considering how isolated this place is.

I then went for a quick trip along the north section of the Bridle Track

This is a much more difficult drive than the bitumen south section. There was some rocky sections and it was fairly rough.

From here I headed on to Sofala which is an easy bitumen drive and stopped at the Royal Hotel for a quick beer. This place is apparently the oldest continuously licensed pub in the state. It was getting dark so I head approx 5km east along Upper Turon River Road to a nice camp spot on the Turon River. There is drop toilets here and if you go further in to the area some really secluded spots.

It was stupid cold overnight and even with layer on layer I couldn't get warm. In the morning I discovered frost everywhere including the inside of the tent.

Dogs bowl was frozen solid

I had gone through a few causeways the afternoon before and obviously there was some water dripping out of the bumper. This formed an icicle....

After brekky I headed east further along Upper Turon River Road which pretty much turned to a track after a few kms. There was several causeway crossings, all fairly shallow and slow moving

After the causeways the track turns to a 4wd only road.

This is with good reason and it gets very very rough. 1st gear most of the next 10km or so

There was a side track of the main road to some private property on the banks of the Turon. This track shows pretty well that photos never do justice to real conditions

The above just looks like a standard track. It wasn't. At the top it was almost vertical. This is the side view of the same track

Carrying on I basically followed the signs to Sunny Corner

and went through Palmers Oaky. The only sign you are actually in Palmers Oaky is the fire station

Next I came to the turn off for Mt Horrible Road (not signposted) where you can follow the sign towards Bathurst. This takes you to Winburndale Nature Reserve

and on to Eskdale Road

About halfway along there is a great view back towards Bathurst

This takes you down to Culpits Lane which is a good forestry road through to Dark Corner Road (paved).

I had a bit of time left over so decided on a quick run into Sunny Corner State Forest. Down Daylight Creek Road no more than 1km in and I found an interesting looking little side trail

It was basically a little loop but included 1 very decent little climb.

Carrying on down Daylight Creek Road I found a little creek crossing and after having a close look decided to have a go. It was very steep in and out and I ended up giving the rear bash plate its first tiny scrape on the back corner.

Through some forestry trails and roads and on to Blackbutt Mountain Trail which began a steep climb down to a creek crossing followed by a very very steep climb out. This road was the roughest so far.

Made it to the top with a few little wheel spins on some of the steeper sections

It was getting a little late by this stage and I was low on fuel so I head back into Sunny Corner and home. I had done over 450kms off road in 3 days and crossed multiple rivers and creeks. I had been frozen but had a great time.

State of Origin is about to start. Go the Blues!!

Anyone thinking of heading out this way, you should check the water levels in the rivers first
River reports
When I did it the levels were
MACQUARIE RIVER AT BRUINBUN (421025) 0.44m
TURON RIVER AT SOFALA (421026) 2.00m
MACQUARIE RIVER DOWNSTREAM LONG POINT (421192) 1.51m

Last edited by Toddyh03, 24/May/2012, 9:24 am

---
Toddyh X-2048 (c)
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23/May/2012, 8:05 pm

dlpeek Profile
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X-TRAIL HOLIC

Date Registered: 12-2010
Location: Macquarie Fields SYDNEY
TOTAL POSTS: 1002

Re: Bathurst and beyond

Pleasant reading and viewing vids during the game and half time......Blues have gotta pick up their game in 2nd half.

Great report Todd and out by yourself as well....except for your dogs.

You are sure giving your exy off road experience.

You are right that vids and photos never give real justice to showing how steep and rough roads can be.
I will be using my camcorder on the caves to caves trip and then will need to learn to convert the HD vids (AVCHD with .mts extension) to some format that can be used on on DVDs in basic DVD player.

I have 10 DVDs of HD formatted vids already from my recent Malaysia/Vietnam holiday but still haven't converted them for use on my DVD player. I have approx 6 hours recording time still on my 32Gig HDSD card in the camcorder which will be enough for the trip because I don't want to delete internal 8gig memory (full) plus what is also on card at this stage until I am confident that what I have downloaded and burnt the vids so that they will always be available. I will query your knowledge on the trip plus refer to the appropriate forum thread to gain further knowledge.

Anyway......blues have just scored again and converted so 2 points the diff.

Bye for now

cheers

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Dave Peek
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2010 T31 ST-L (S2) CVT Precision Grey.
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23/May/2012, 9:19 pm

cooch t31 Profile
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X-TRAIL HOLIC

Date Registered: 06-2008
Location: Blue Mountains, NSW
TOTAL POSTS: 5966

Re:

Great trip report Todd.
It's nice country out there but your keen camping out this time of year.
The good old Sofala pub is a relic for sure, is the guy with the white beard still sitting under the veranda? I used to go shooting in Sofala and he was perched there on his seat every single time we drove past.

Enjoyed reading it.

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Tony X-891c

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24/May/2012, 5:45 am

Toddyh03 Profile
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Date Registered: 08-2011
Location: Lalor Park, NSW
TOTAL POSTS: 1663

Re: Bathurst and beyond

Tony he was sitting inside the pub. Must have been too cold out emoticon

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Toddyh X-2048 (c)
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24/May/2012, 7:34 am

Jupitor 2 Profile
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X-TRAIL FANATIC

Date Registered: 01-2009
Location: Newcastle Australia
TOTAL POSTS: 318

Re:

Boy you certainly are having alot of fun with the exy

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24/May/2012, 9:55 am

Scoobs148 Profile
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Date Registered: 05-2012
TOTAL POSTS: 25

Re:

Great post, looks like you had a wonderful time.

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Anthony X-2412 (c)
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24/May/2012, 12:50 pm

whip62 Profile
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Date Registered: 10-2010
Location: Bathurst, NSW
TOTAL POSTS: 147

Re: Bathurst and beyond

Hi Toddy,

The Upper Turon really is a nice drive isn't it. I've done the round trip from home (Bathurst) twice this year, from Sunny Cnr to Sofala.

The first time was after the January rains, which was interesting as there were numerous mud puddles and I only had the road tyres on and was slipping and sliding a bit, mainly due to too much speed. Second time was in April, after the floods. The track had dried out and was a pretty easy drive, but the water crossings were up a bit. The rock step section (East - West) was probably the trickiest.

You probably won't believe this, but prior to the January rains my daughter did the trip from Sunny Cnr, when it was completely dry, in her Ford Festiva. I hadn't been out that way in years and thought it must've been pretty good until I did my first trip where I did knock the side steps on the rock step section. I was amazed that she'd made it, but assume that due to the rain the rock section had probably washed out more than when she went through.

Even so I still can't believe she did it, don't think she can either.

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Whip
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3/Jun/2012, 2:51 pm

Toddyh03 Profile
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Date Registered: 08-2011
Location: Lalor Park, NSW
TOTAL POSTS: 1663

Re: Bathurst and beyond

Hi Whip, yep it's a great drive. I can see a festiva making probably 80-90% of the trip in the dry but there are sections it would end up sitting/stuck on a rock. Even some of the concrete causeway crossings have approaches that would bottom out a 2wd car.
I obviously don't have side steps but I could definitely see them at least touching if not worse through some of the rockier sections.

It's definitely a drive I want to do again. Maybe next time with a group.

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Toddyh X-2048 (c)
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3/Jun/2012, 4:39 pm

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Date Registered: 01-2009
Location: Newcastle Australia
TOTAL POSTS: 318

Re: Bathurst and beyond

quote:
Toddyh03 wrote:

Hi Whip, yep it's a great drive. I can see a festiva making probably 80-90% of the trip in the dry but there are sections it would end up sitting/stuck on a rock. Even some of the concrete causeway crossings have approaches that would bottom out a 2wd car.
I obviously don't have side steps but I could definitely see them at least touching if not worse through some of the rockier sections.

It's definitely a drive I want to do again. Maybe next time with a group.

So sometime after the 16th June, just let me know when.

---
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3/Jun/2012, 10:06 pm