Trip Report – SHEEPSKIN HUT Recce
and surrounding area
Thursday 13th April 2023
From Neil’s trip notes…….
- Left Macquarie Park at Windsor at 8:00am on Thurs 13 April, arrived back at starting point at 5:55pm.
- Only 2 vehicles able to make it – 4 others had to withdraw at the last minute – 2 with sick personnel and 2 with mechanical problems.
- Participants:
Neil Flower (Trip Leader)
Land Rover Disco 2
Matt Smith (Navigator)Passenger with Neil
Alex Levshin (Photographer) Ford Ranger
Stephen Mok (Alex’s Guest) Passenger with Alex
First of all, a summary:
* A really great trip – worth waiting 5 months for NPWS to open track.
* A long trip for a 1 day trip. Total time taken was 9 hours 55 minutes. This time would be realistic for a larger convoy as we travelled at convoy speed ((tried to go at 80kph max on highways), and included MT, Lunch, and AT, at realistic timing. Nevertheless participants (and trip Leaders) of a much larger Convoy would need to be disciplined in their timing in order to be able to do the trip in daylight in
months May to September.
* Total distance – Windsor to Windsor was 290km – most of this (approx.. 220km), was on the bitumen of the ‘Putty Rd.’
* Non bitumen roads/tracks were in good condition for 70% of trip, remainder not too bad.
* No low range was needed, only a very few challenging sections of very short duration and all members of our group considered that this trip would be suitable for ‘soft-roader’ vehicles (‘Ntrails, Subarus etc.)
General Comments:
* The day was mostly overcast, a few light showers but nothing to spoil the fun.
* Bush was magnificent and great views of mountainous country and some great rock formations on route back from Sheepskin hut.
* NPWS (for once to their credit) had just finished building a new toilet block – finished less than an hour before we arrived! (We met the builders coming out on the track as we came in and talked with them!)
* Sheepskin Hut is an interesting place – 2 picnic tables with seats are in place, quite good grass for some camping, with more across the creek some 200+ metres away.
* The trip is a ‘round trip’ – i.e.. We come home a different way to the road in.
* The Commission Road on which we came in, also continues further on to the village of Jerrys Plains (which we did not do – but this gives a further trip opportunity for another trip).
* No fuel is available after Colo Heights. Suggest that drivers start the day with a full tank. However, we noticed that fuel prices at Colo Hts. Were the same as Vineyard/Windsor/ Wilberforce which is cheaper than many metropolitan Servos.
Conclusion:
*An excellent trip. Can be done relatively easily in one day, although a two day trip would be more leisurely.
* We went midweek and saw almost no others on the dirt section except 1 Hi Lux ute going opposite direction and the 3 builder’s utes coming from the toilet construction.
*The tracks showed almost no evidence of recent vehicular traffic, so we would probably have the place to ourselves even at a weekend.
* No evidence of Bunyips, Swiffles or Dingbats in the whole area.
* I would advise TRAX Committee to schedule a trip to this area on Saturday 13th May and, to leave Windsor at 7:00am to maximise daylight.
– Neil Flower -Trip Leader (and of course, General Troublemaker!)