24^th April 2005

It was an absolutely magnificent autumn Melbourne morning that greeted us as we set off for another Hooly Dooly What A Whoopty Doo day trip, this time to an area up behind Walhalla, Victoria. In fact (the old) Trig Track has quite a reputation, so it will be great to see how it holds up nowadays.

The standard is medium in the dry with a some difficult sections should the tracks be wet. The weather was fine and dry so we were able to cover all the tracks we intended. It is our suggestion that this trip should only be attempted by experienced four wheel drivers in high clearance vehicles with a proper low range transfer case.

The Thomson dam, Melbourne's major water supply dam is the starting point once again for this trip. It is located 170 kilometers south east of Melbourne about 1.5 hours drive from Pakenham. With an early start from Melbourne we arrived at the dam at 9:30. The dam was built in two stages, in the 70's a tunnel system was drilled and blasted through the Great Dividing Range to the Upper Yarra dam. Finally in 1983 the dam wall was finished and ready to store Melbourne's water.

Heading east across the dam wall, it is only a short distance to the Walhalla/Aberfeldy road where a left turn will have you quickly at Trig track. Turn right onto Trig track. There are a couple of steep descents to be negotiated and eventually you proceed straight ahead at the cross road with CFM track. At this point Trig track has a seasonal closure gate, being closed from the 1/5 to 30/10 each year. From the gate down to the creek at the bottom of the valley is once again quite steep.

Once at the creek you'll notice a nice camp spot above the creek on the left, although it is often occupied, so an early arrival would be needed to be first in. This creek crossing is very rocky at the approach, so much so that we have seen a Hilux with 35” tyres bend his side step. We keep left each time we have crossed and apart from the usual thumping, no damage has been sustained.

TIP:
It's always worthwhile getting out and checking a creek or river crossing first. Look for depth of water, hazards such as deep holes and large rocks. This gives you the opportunity to select the best path through.

Now we are ready for the climb out of the valley on the notorious section of the track. First a bit of history on this section of track. Many years ago there was a very famous picture which continually did the rounds of the magazines. It showed a 60 series Toyota in monster ruts (at least waist deep) with one front wheel almost two meters off the ground. Now back then standard vehicles didn't even come with a limited slip diff, so no one was ever able to make it up, except for this 60 series.

As well as being extremely rutted, the track was awesomely steep, going straight up the side of the mountain. You may be wondering how this Toyota made it up when no one else could. Well this vehicle was owned by the Brown brothers of later ARB fame and they had prototypes of their soon to be released diff locks in both axles.

Today, the climb out of the valley is much easier with twelve switch backs to negotiate. At various sections the old track can be seen going straight up the side of the mountain. Once the switch backs have been completed, the track still climbs steeply until it reaches the intersection with One Speck track. At this point we met up with two other vehicles (both Hiluxs') who decided to tag along for the rest of the day.

Turn right onto One Speck Track and proceed proceed for a few hundred meters where a left turn into Dry Gully track leads you down a nice steep descent to Fultons Creek. Before reaching the creek, the road forks, take the right fork which will lead you to the first of three creek crossings. We stopped and had lunch here. It was here that Alex, one of the boys from the Hilux showed us how quickly his bush walkers stove heated his coffee pot. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was awesome.

After lunch we made the first two creek crossings then turned right onto Fultons Creek track. If you are using the Beardmore Vicmap, this little loop over the two creek crossings isn't shown, but it is worth the detour. We then crossed Fultons Creek for a third time and it wasn't long before there was another really steep climb. In fact I have marked on the map that this sectoin is steep.

After the steep section it levels out somewhat and eventually you will reach a T intersection. The names on the sign post are a little confusing, however, we turned right (almost straight ahead) and headed for Binns Road. At Binns Road we turned right and headed the kilometer or so to Deep Creek No4 track.

We turned left into Deep Creek No4 and proceeded for some way until an intersection off to the right was reached. We got out of our vehicles to peer down this track and boy was it steep. Not only steep, but a lot of loose stuff on the surface. One of the boys in the diesel Hilux decided to give it a go while we decided to take the chicken track which rejoined this steep one half way down. It was here that I remembered just how good a diesel is going downhill. Only once did the brake lights flash for a second, the rest of the time engine braking was all that was needed. Our Prado has a 40:1 first gear low range ratio, which is really excellent, however the petrol motors of today are made so light that even with this gearing they do run away downhill.

This track kept descending and a bit later we reached another extremely long, steep and rough downhill section. Two of us decided to take the chicken track to the bottom and come up. First the Hilux diesel attempted the climb, getting about halfway and coming to a stop at a rough section. A couple of seconds to compose himself and Dicco was reversing back for another try. This time with a little more momentum and a different line he was able to make it all the way.

Next the Prado had a go. Boy this track was steep but we made it to the top first go. Now there was still one Hilux that was trying to make its mind up whether to go down or up. This Hilux was a late model, 2.7 ltr petrol with independent front suspension, non aggressive tyres and completely standard in all ways.

It wasn't long before Alex decided to go down. He started off well (brake lights on all the time), but really started to slip and slide for quite some meters over the rougher section. It was great that Alex knew how to drive (rallying in England) and kept himself out of trouble over this section.

A few hundred meters on we came to an interesting section of track that actually followed a rocky creek for about fifty meters. This proved a little tricky as it was best to squeeze between a rock wall and a rocky outcrop. Everything went fine for the first two vehicles, however, the last one managed to clip the rock wall puncturing his front tyre. A quick wheel change on the other side of the creek and we were all off on another steep climb.

After this climb we ran along the top of the mountain for a bit before another steep descent. Light was fading as now it was after 4pm and the cloud had built up. At the bottom of the descent the track just stopped at a dry rocky creek bed. Two of our team jumped out and walked about 50 meters up the creek bed, it resembled a natural tunnel with tree ferns providing a complete canopy.

There was no option but to follow the creek bed and hope that the track exit was somewhere up ahead. About two hundred meters further on, the track did exit the tunnel. What an amazing section of track, we will certainly be going back later. We kept on the Deep Creek No4 track until a cross roads is reached around a recently logged area. Here we turned right and in a short time were at the Walhalla/Aberfeldy road where we turned left for Walhalla where we stopped for a drink while tyres were being inflated.

Trip Standard

If dry weather is the order of the day then this would be an easy/medium trip using the chicken tracks around the tough bits, however, the slightest bit of rain and sections would become difficult (albeit a lot of fun). Probably the most difficult would be the ruts out of the creek crossing on the Dream Creek track. There is no way around them, so at least one vehicle is going to require the equipment or persistence to get through.

Maps

Vicmap Beardmore 1:25000

Vicmap Walhalla 1:25000

This is a great day trip covering around 400Km from Melbourne and back. It offers some challenging sections of track and beautiful scenery. There are plenty of nice areas to stop for morning tea and lunch or to just let the kids run off a bit of steam. DVD's of this trip and others are now available.

Trip Notes

The starting point for this trip is the wall of the Thomson dam. This is reached by travelling along the Princes Highway through Pakenham, Warragul and finally turn off at Moe for Walhalla but continuing straight towards the Thomson dam.