Trip Report – Yengo Track Recce Trip
Date: Thursday 19th January 2023
Attendees and Vehicles:
Alex Levshin (Trip Leader) and Alan Davis
Ford Ranger
Neil Flower and Ron Paton
Land Rover Disco S2
Ralph Radovan
Range Rover P38
Rob Drummond
Toyota Land Cruiser 200
Weather: Warm, but intermittent light rain most of the day. Did not cause any problems.
Route taken: Trip members met and ‘coffee’ed’ at Peats Ridge Village centre on Peats Ridge Road north of the M1 Motorway.
Trip Details: This was a midweek ‘Recce’ trip to assess if all the ‘La Ninã’ rains had caused any problems, serious washaways or closures, diversions or detours to the track and to see if it was still navigable for say, ‘soft-roader’ type vehicles. Thus, only a small number of participants attended (6 in all with 4 vehicles. The trip went from East to west and on the Yengo track, and on the conclusion of that drive a further short ‘recce’ was made up the ‘Commission Rd.‘ to see if the road to ‘Sheepskin Hut’ was also still navigable.
Distances:
- Peats Ridge Village to End of Yengo Track (Junction with Putty Rd.) = 93.7km.
- Junction of Yengo and Putty Rds. to Windsor = 115 km.
- From end of Yengo Track to Commission Rd = 6.5 km
- From end of Yengo Track to the old ‘Halfway Roadhouse’ (approx.) = 12 km.
The Details: The day began overcast and threatened rain. This was no idle threat as it did -almost all day! Only very light rain, mostly just drizzle and not enough to cause any great worries, tyre slippages or bogging. It actually made the bush look beautiful, the wet seemed to have more colour and of course much more ‘shine’ than when dry.
We departed Peats Ridge at about 8:15am and headed north through Kulnura till just before reaching the village of Laguna the road to Yengo turns off to the left. It did, so did we!
The road was in quite good condition and we made good time.
At approximately 3km along this road we turned left onto the Boree valley road and proceeded along that way. Intermittent drizzle, although only of ‘nuisance’ type – just heavy to cause us to leave our wipers on intermittent to cleat the windscreen every 20 seconds or so.
Another 17 kms brought us to the Finchley ‘Camp Ground’, a quite nice area which is being developed by the NPWS with a brand new ‘long-drop’ toilet, cleared spaces for parking and flat areas for tents and camping. Unfortunately, this was the only time on the whole trip when it rained hard enough for us to seek some shelter under one of the new NPWS awnings in order to have our Morning Tea.
Near the Finchley camping area are aboriginal rock engraving which probably showed up better because they were wet and the grooves full of water which made taking photos so much easier.
Proceeding another 13.5kms (approx.) brought us to a god spot for lunch. The rain had all but stopped and we were able to get out the chairs and lunch things. Lunch was OK but dessert…! Ralph had very kindly purchased a huge watermelon to share and everyone had a great dessert of really sweet and very juicy melon. Delicious. Thanks Ralph. (Come again!!!)
Setting off from the lunch spot the road became more of a track and more rutted and with a few ‘grooves’ especially on the up and down hill sections. Not enough to worry any of the vehicles that had high ground clearance and certainly not steep enough to warrant engaging low range. But, this correspondent would not recommend the last 25 kms or so of the track for ‘soft-roader vehicles unless they had good ground clearance – eg. Some of the single range utes with good clearance.
The bush looked beautiful. Yes, we couldn’t see very far over the valley because of the low cloud and mist, but there is something really nice about driving though the bush in such weather. (You don’t get ‘pin stripes’ on your vehicles paintwork because of the wet leaves for one thing. The road (realy ‘the track’ has not been used much of late and the bush is starting to ‘close-in’, especially because of the extra weight of rain water on the leaves. The further we went the slower the progress as the track became just that little bit rougher. No scrabbling, no slipping on the ascents or descents but enough to make the vehicle’s suspension get a good workout.
Nineteen and half kms from our lunch place we came out on the ‘Putty’ Road at about 3:15pm. This point is 115 kms from Windsor along a really nice bitumen road and good time can be made.
However, this was a ‘Recce’ trip and so just 6kms along we turned right onto a track called ‘Commission Road, because that is the way to the Sheepskin Hut, which is a trip that will be advertised to TRAX members shortly. We wanted to check out the first kms of road to see how much damage the rains of the last couple of years had caused. The NSW Forests Corporation have been rebuilding the steeper (last half) of this road and they tell us that it will be complete at the end of January (This month.) So, we wanted to check out the older part of the track. It checked out OK! Don’t miss the full round trip which we hope can be done in March. (Easy but really nice and isolated.)
Well, that’s about it. Most of us were hope by about 7:00pm and able to relax. Don’t miss either the Yengo Track or the Sheepskin Hut trips when they are advertised. (Get onto the committee members and make ‘em set some dates!)
In conclusion, we had a really great day; a relatively easy trip, great views, and most of all really great fellowship. (and watermelon!). Thanks to Alex Levshin who did a great job as trip leader, to Ron and Rob for their photography and all the gang who came.
“See yers on the TRAX”,
Neil Flower