Moornapa State Forest

Monday, 18 November 2024

And today dawned with blue sky and sunshine. So disappointing that the weather yesterday was so miserable. First thing on the agenda this morning was to get the DMax sorted out. It was a pain getting onto the Traralgon Isuzu dealership with the phone ringing out repeatedly. When they were finally reached it turned out that all phones had been out of service in Traralgon.

In the meantime, the MU-X’s wheel had been removed and the stone lodged in the front driver’s side disc brake was found and removed. One tiny foreign body that made one hell of a racket! Such a relief though to discover that it WAS a stone as suspected and not something worse. After calls between the insurance company and Isuzu it was eventually decided that the vehicle would be left in Dargo for the tray truck to collect it and take it to the Bairnsdale Isuzu dealership so that Pam could come along as a passenger to see a little more of the Victorian High Country before driving back to Queensland.

It was nearly 11.00am by the time we headed out of Dargo, now with only three vehicles. We headed south down the Dargo Road before turning onto Freestone Creek Road to drive through the Moornapa State Forest. After the challenging driving on the tracks we have negotiated over the last two days this was very easy going. We stopped at Shady Place to take some photos of Freestone Creek … and some cheeky blue wrens. John has been stirring us that we are Birdy Nerdies with our interest in the feathered wildlife!

We made another stop at Barney Campsite before pulling into McKinnon Point. Wow, wow, wow, I could hear them before I saw them, peregrine falcons nesting in the cliff face. Whether mum/dad was heading off anyway or whether we disturbed him/her, one of the adult birds took off from the nest. We then settled in to watch the remaining three members of the family perched on the cliff face with telephoto lenses and binoculars for longer than I think John thought was necessary, ha, ha?!

We drove a little further along Freestone Creek Road before John took us on a short cut/linking track across to Quarry Road and then into The Quarry Reserve campground just out of Briagolong. We used the facilities in the campground and said our farewells with John saying he would take us back to Valencia Creek and then he would peel off to take Pam to Bairnsdale and Michael and us could head back to the city via Maffra and Heyfield.

On Saturday night John had been praising the steak and kidney pies at the Heyfield Bakery, so we were thinking about picking up some pies to take home. John warned that they close at 3.00pm so suggested ringing ahead to order our pies and let them know we’d be there just after 3.00pm. Sorted! They’ll be there mopping the floors until 3.30pm.

We made it to the bakery about quarter past three and collected our pies before heading to the servo to put air in the tyres. For the off-roading Bernie had let them down to 28 PSI, so they needed to be pumped back to 38 PSI for the freeway driving back to Melbourne. We re-traced our route from Friday making it back home just after 6.00pm to throw those pies in the oven and cook some veg to go with them for a relatively easy dinner.

All-in-all a good weekend that taught us heaps about four-wheel driving. It’s one thing to own a 4×4 and quite the experience to put it through its paces on some challenging tracks. Bernie did a great job driving on tracks that I would never have the confidence to tackle. I was ‘happy’ – if somewhat white-knuckled – to be along as his passenger. We survived the experience and will probably do it again in order to see a bit more of the amazing countryside in Victoria’s alpine regions.

Thanks John, check out John’s Tag Along Tours at https://www.dingotrax.com.au/