DAY 1 - Saturday 

Mt Widgee - or thereabouts

A 1 pm meeting time at the Golden Arches at Beaudesert paved the way for a noon luncheon appointment at the Beaudesert Hotel, and a chance to enjoy a few icy cold lemonades (?) and ponder what may lay ahead for the remainder of the afternoon. As it was day one of the Sydney Sports Carnival, all eyes in the pub were firmly glued to the noticeably abundant number of televisions scattered randomly throughout this fine establishment.

After tearing ourselves away from the hotel, Julie and I made our way down the road to McDonalds to meet the rest of the crew. On arrival, we found the aforementioned crew consisted of Ron, Glenys and Wade P. Some time later, John S arrived flying solo, with Dave M being fashionably late. We all then waited for the PHANTOMS, you know, those people who put their name on the trip-sheet and then don't turn up and don't bother to phone anyone to let them know of their change of plans, and allow those of us that do turn up to waste an hour or so (and valuable mobile phone calls) waiting for them. (Sorry to whinge but it's not that hard.)

At last we were off, heading for familiar ground, through Darlington Park to Mt. Widgee or thereabouts. David popped up to see the owner of the property but he was not home. The aim of the afternoon was to climb little Mt Widgee and descend on to Christmas Creek road and onto our campsite for the evening. We proceeded listening to Ron and David on the CB. trying to find a track they drove up 15 years ago. Then they spotted it, the track. 'I think that's it, running alongside the fence' we're told. `Yes that must be it, I think!' comes the reply. Now I do have a reasonable imagination, however, I could see a fence but I'm buggered if I could see a track. But still, we pressed on. We encountered a few harmless lumps and bumps, and then a fairly steep grassy climb. This was not a hard ascent by any means, but with my road tyres on there was a fairly high degree of wheel spin. ("an easy afternoon's drive" were Dave's words, so I didn't change to my off-road tyres before we left home.) Still we got up OK.

Sitting on a plateau, we watched David battling to get past a small but nasty rut . The rut didn't look too bad, however between us and Dave was a section of 'track' with a 30 degree side slope. With the Khumos this would not be a problem but with my roadies on, I was a little concerned. This concern proved not to be unfounded because as soon as I moved off to attempt this next stage the wheels started to spin, with the Mighty Brumby moving faster sideways than forwards. With my right foot planted firmly on the brake pedal, David set about snatching me up and Julie set about having a nervous breakdown.

John hit it a little harder than me and made it through OK, and Glenys persuaded Ron to turn around and take the scenic route. Another rocky, slippery hill, another snatch and we were up. The only trouble now was where do we go from here? Dave disappeared in his Super Brumby down one track, John took off on foot down another, and Julie and I stayed put awaiting further instructions.

We eventually followed David down to the bottom to meet up with Ron. Gaven McG had magically appeared and proceeded to beat the crap out of a defenceless wild lemon tree for his daily hit of citrus.

The convoy then made its way to the Stinson Camp Ground where we all set up camp for the night and commenced Happy Hour as it was way past Beer O'Clock. We all enjoyed a relaxing evening before retiring for the night.

Graeme Laws SC430

DAY 2  -Sunday

Stinson Walk

Patricia and Jim L joined us on Saturday night in their Forester 2000. Sunday morning we had a starting line up of eight. The adventurous few were Ron, Glenys, and Wade P, Jim and Patricia L, Gaven McG, Dave M and myself.

After an hour or so we were standing around James Westray's grave, buried not far from where he died 63 years ago. It is situated in an eerily peaceful grove of rainforest. Then came the business end of the walk, one and a half hours, all uphill and quite steep in places. Glenys decided to head back to the vehicles at this stage, maybe she knew something the others didn't.

The first part of the ascent is probably the steepest. It is just possible to stay upright by holding on to trees as one ascends. An hour later we struck our first little cliff. We edged gingerly across a small ledge, a test everyone passed with flying colours. By now everyone was asking "How long now?" "About five minutes," I replied.

Thirty minutes later we reached the large campsite above the Stinson Wreck. Well, it is a while since I have been up here. Everyone scrambled down the last steep bit of track towards the wreck and soon were standing next to the graves of the passengers and crew that perished. This was the point of impact but there was precious little wreckage to be seen. We decided to scout around in the steep rainforest below the crash site and were soon rewarded with some large pieces of air frame and under carriage mechanism. Jim was particularly interested, being a retired aircraft mechanic. The sheer isolation of the crash site reinforced our amazement at how Bernard O'Reilly actually found the wreck in the first place, especially as it was supposed to have crashed into the sea off Sydney.

We headed back up to the campsite for a bite to eat. Surprisingly, everybody still had more gas in their tank as they headed uphill for another one and a half km to Point Lookout campsite with its lookout towards the north and east. Here we came across a lone bush walker who had done an incredible two day circuit of Lamington National Park and was heading back down the same route as us. The trip back was much quicker being mostly down hill, In places you just had to sit on your bum and slide! By the time we reached the cars more than eight hours after we started we knew we had done a walk.

We drove back to the campsite and Ron dropped out of the vehicle and crawled towards where Glenys was waiting. We then discovered that most of us had picked up non-paying passengers in the form of scrub ticks. So it was shirts off to see who would win the prize for the most ticks. Wade easily won this with over 14.

Wade also won the prize for the understatement of the day "Gee, this is harder than Bald Rock" - but full credit to him and the other walkers. It was a hard walk and a walk not many other 4X4 clubs would consider undertaking. I don't know about the others but I crashed pretty early that night.  

John Shera SC466