cdn_downunder
Member Since: 25 Oct 2010
Location: Sydney
Posts: 37
 
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| Our first week of FL2 ownership... | |
We just returned from our 'break in' road trip from Sydney to Melbourne and back and had a good chance to put the vehicle through it's paces.
We took a 4x4 trail from behind Tumut Power Station 3 up to Buddong Falls via some 4x4 tracks with deep ruts a bit of wading and a few trees over the track which needed clearing. The walking track to the falls was closed as all of the bridges had washed out due to recent storm activity, so you can imagine the state of the forestry access roads we were driving on. The Freelander handled everything with aplomb, and we were delighted that we'd taken the off road track through the snowy mountains en route to Melbourne.
After a week of meetings and visiting friends in Melbourne we decided to take the coast road home, and this is where things got a bit interesting. The night before our return trip an arm of (by then former) Cyclone Yasi hit Melbourne (yes the other end of the continent from Northern Queensland - it was THAT big) and caused extensive flooding. We got out of the city without issue the next morning, wading through a number of instant lakes at various intersections and onto the coast Motorway.
We ran into trouble just as we got out of the suburbs however as the police had closed the entire motorway in both directions due to flooding and were directing all traffic off onto a dual carriageway - suffice to say gridlock quickly ensued! My trusty navigator broke out google maps and plotted an alternate course that would take us about 20kms out of our way, but looked like it would bypass all the traffic and get us back onto the motorway about 30kms down the road (the police had said the motorway was closed for about 20kms). There appeared to be several unsealed roads on our route so we expected traffic to be light and it was.
After crossing a couple fast moving overflowing creeks with no issue we were feeling pretty good about our new purchase. We then came to a line of cars backed up with groups of people standing around contemplating their chances at the Little Bunyip River which had overflowed the road, was moving quite fast and (after watching a 4x4 go through, about 60cm deep) about 30m across a stretch of sealed road. We went in slow but continuous and had no problems what so ever, this river later caused evacuations of 4 towns downstream so we made it across just in time in my estimation.
We got back on the motorway and headed East again, staying alert as there was flood signage out, we saw flashing lights up ahead and the police were just arriving to close another section that had flooded across the Motorway to about 40cm but they had not set up as yet so we rolled on through, again no issues, just slow and steady. For the rest of the afternoon we were pretty much alone on the Motorway as I suspect we were almost the last to get through, and saw few cars.
We stopped over for the night in a place called Lakes Entrance, headed out the next morning and saw 'smoke on road' signs along the highway. As the storm had passed over us the evening before we thought this a bit humourous until we hit what has obviously been a pretty severe bush fire the day before. Still smoking trees and eerie barren landscape on both sides of the road for kms (pic in my gallery), with a few houses that obviously were fighting from their rooftops as the fire came in. Still smoking trees were everywhere and I expect the storm was a godsend for these country folk as you could see where the fire came up to within meters of their homes (and I expect as far as their fire fighting hoses sprayed out to) and passed by or just stopped short.
A great road trip for our first week in the FL2, we were very glad to have it as we would not have gotten out in our old car and an impressive demonstration of the awesome force of Mother Nature and how a tragedy for some can be a blessing for others, we were truly humbled by it.
Next month, we head on a road trip north to visit the wife's family in QLD and lend a hand with the rebuilding for a few days.
Love our FL2! 11MY SE SD4 in Lago Grey just arrived with a free Garmin thrown in! This could be the start of a beautiful relationship (I'm an eternal optimist, and former FL1 owner)!
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7th Feb 2011 5:50 am
