TRIP REPORT: HIRA
Date: 4th July 2010
Trip leader: Scotty
Trip report: Graeme Nicholls
Just because I lost one of my nuts, I got landed with trip report!!! How unfair is that????
July 4th dawned nice and clear with the promise of a really nice day, so threw the back seat into the Rocky, threw wife Kay, daughter Sarah and her friend Jess onto the seats, chucked some tucker and drinks into the back and headed into Miller’s Acre car park to meet the rest of our club members who had assembled in preparation to get lost on another of Hillbilly’s infamous Hira forestry trips.
After a talk on the do this and do not do that from Hillbilly, he advised us that Scotty would be leading the trip for the day. This was because Scotty had a passenger by the name of Shane [alias Magoo] who was very intimate with the area that we would be traversing. I personally found that a wee bit disappointing, as the highlight of previous trips was to see how lost we all could actually get when Hillbilly was in charge.
Fourteen vehicles left town to re-assemble at Sharlands Creek, where Hillbilly promptly robbed us all of $5 per truck, and then proceeded to lead from the rear. Away we went with Scotty leading and at the first sign of having to use four wheel drive, the trip claimed it’s first victim in the shape of the yellow Jeep being driven by Kooze. The Jeep screamed: “I don’t want to do this, it’s been too long and I want to go home”, so that’s exactly what happened. Transfer box I understand. Shortly after this, I noticed that the Rocky was getting a bit: well, rocky, so upon closer inspection it was revealed that I had indeed lost one of my nuts. The nut in question had held the bottom of one of the back shock absorbers in place, so a quick rummage around in other people’s toolboxes soon located a replacement, and we were on our way again.
On the track again, and we either had the choice of staying on the road, or venturing off and following Scotty up and down fire breaks, skidder tracks or whatever else they could find tokeep us amused.
After a couple of hours of this, we stopped a fair way up on one of the hills for a lunch break where we could admire the splendid views that were laid out before us. Away again, and some of the tracks became a little [read a lot] more challenging, with Scotty declaring that he might need a new set of underwear after very nearly showing us all what the underside of a Toyota Surf looked like! A bit of an effort with a few shovels and picks had a sort of a track for us to navigate down, but I did notice that quite a few passengers decided to make the most of the view’s by walking for a short while at this time.
As the afternoon wore on, the mid winter sun became a real issue, as it seemed that every time you headed uphill you were looking straight into the sun. This made some of the tracks just a wee bit more of a challenge, with our fearless rear admiral Hillbilly requiring a bit of assistance from the long tow rope of Leo on one occasion! Interesting to note that on some of the tracks where we thought we were doing quite well to climb them on our 33” mud tyres, there was a prospective new member by the name of Jose in a stock standard Daihatsu Feroza with ordinary road tyres, and he was right up there with us a lot of the time. Well done that man and his family!
Carried on around the forestry area, looking down into Lud Valley and out to Cable Bay, and then heading back towards Nelson and looking down onto the harbour area and over to the western ranges. Because it was such a nice day, and with the snow on the mountains, the views were outstanding and this is what makes this trip so enjoyable. This was pretty much the end of the trip, so headed back down to Sharland’s creek to say our goodbyes, and then home.
Thanks to Hillbilly for organizing this trip and to Scotty and Magoo for leading it.
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