Wednesday, 27 December 2017

End of year trip 2017, Day 2

Up relatively early, around 6'ish, had coffee and breakfast. We packed up and left camp a bit after 7 and headed off to explore the Byfield National Park as low tide was around 10:30 am for beach driving. Bit of a rough road into the park and then got to the point where we had to air down, I went to 18 psi at back and 16 psi at the front.
There is quite a long steepish hill of soft sand to get over on the way in and I thought I was going fine until a deep bump took away all my momentum and I couldn't go any further. This was with the stability control turned off but still high range. I had to back up quite a bit and tried a few things , like low range, rear diff lock, but I couldn't get any further. So I let the tyres down to 14 rear 12 front and after a few tries got a couple of metres further but I still couldn't get up the hill. So then it was down to 10 psi rear and 9 psi front and I was able to get enough momentum up to get me past the big bump and I could continue up the hill. Shane of course came up without getting stuck with his tyres at 18 psi, he was in first gear low range however.
We continued out to Stockyard Point for a look and there is quite a few fishermen's shacks there. There was a spectacular view from the point both north and south.




Then it was a quick drive to Five Rock Beach where we had to walk 500 metres or so down lots of steps but it was worth it. The beach is spectacular and there was a little fresh water stream running down the hill. We walked up to the Five Rocks at the north end and then Shane went exploring while I headed back to find some shade and write up this diary. Then started the painful walk back up the hill. We had a quick look at the camp ground and at least half the sites were vacant even though they showed as booked on the web site.


We headed over to the main beach and had a look at a little waterfall before driving down to the south end of the beach and going across to the inland side to have a look at the Corio Bay day use area. Nice spot but a bit swampy. 


Then back up the beach calling in to have a look at some of the camp grounds, they also were not as full as they were supposed to be. We took another narrow soft sandy track back to the main entrance road near the top of Big Sandy and headed down it. Much easier than coming up. We had to wait a bit near the bottom as a couple of cars had got them selves bogged. We found a shady spot on the road and put some air back into the tyres.
We stopped in at WaterPark Creek day use area and had some lunch before going on a loop walk around the area. We thought it was going to lead us to the swimming hole but it was a false promise. So, we ended up walking back along the road and over the causeway and simply jumping in. Very pleasant way to spend 30 or so minutes. Then it was back to camp for a lazy afternoon before dinner another early night in bed.



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