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High Country Page 2 of 3 It’s worth remembering that the vast majority of tracks weren’t put there for your off-road pleasure. They’re there for emergency access during bushfires and for the business of day-to-day forestry management. So driving on them is really a privilege you can do your bit to help preserve. Play by the rules - observe closure notices, respect signs and locked gates, minimise wheelspin on tracks, avoid driving in the wet where possible (it just cuts the tracks to pieces) and use tree protectors when winching. In other words, if you don’t act like an enviro-thug, the tracks will remain accessible and a bunch of four-wheel drivers will be able to enjoy the region in the future. For track conditions, visit Parks Victoria at www.parkweb.vic.gov.au or the Department of Natural Resources and Environment at www.nre.vic.gov.au. Don’t underestimate the High Country. The weather can be unpredictable. It’s not uncommon for snow to fall during the Christmas break and at other traditionally hot times. It’s substantially cooler in summer months at high altitude - expect mid-20s when the coastal capitals are scoring thirty-something. You can easily pack four seasons into one High Country day, so pack accordingly everything from Speedos and thongs to polartec and parkas. And don’t underestimate the ferocity of the sun - 2000 fewer metres of atmosphere atop your head makes for serious sunburn if you neglect the slip, slop, slap for the day.
Tackling the High Country is very different from a drive in the country. The area is remote enough so that a long, lonely walk could be the only option in the absence of communications gear should the vehicle cark it part way to (or home from) a sublime destination. Maintain your vehicle as you would for any other serious trek. Pay special attention to tyres - as is the case with deserts, standard highway-spec 4WD rubber just doesn’t cut the mustard in the High Country. When you leave the blacktop behind, sharp gravel will take its toll on highway tyres. In other words, it will shred them. You will spend a lot of time fitting the spare, repairing tyres, looking for a tyre repair shop and generally fart-arsing about when you should be enjoying your off-roading, capice? Additionally, highway rubber doesn’t exactly cope with mud. The tread faces quickly become clogged, leaving you driving on what are essentially big, round toboggans. Not fun... Fit at least all-terrain (A/T) rubber, which offers a reasonable, rational compromise between off-road ability and driving to and from the High Country on the highway. The more rugged carcass, tougher tread and thicker sidewalls resist sharp gravel and other off-road assaults better, and the smarter tread pattern is designed to shed mud as the tyre flexes, allowing the tread to contribute to grip the track underfoot. (The primary purpose of a tread pattern on a road-only tyre is to pump water away in the rain, not to grip the road - the rubber does that. If it never rained, road-going tyres would be smooth, whereas 4WD tyres would continue to sport aggressive tread patterns.) The matter of tyres aside, most of the truly magnificent out-of-the-way places in the High Country that are accessible to vehicles are accessible by reasonably standard 4WDs. And by that, we mean proper 4WDs - ones low range, 200+ millimetres of ground clearance and more than half a metre of wading depth (because all those ridges do tend to have a variety of rivers and creeks in between them). If you’re in a soft-roader, best stick to the tracks marked ‘easy’. Now, the vehicle is one thing, but how about you, the driver? In one’s imagination, it is all too easy to be the world’s greatest lover as well as equally proficient behind the wheel. However, steeply eroded gullies and slippery tracks do tend to be a great leveller - so if you are inexperienced, get appropriate off-road driver ed in the form of an accredited 4WD course before tackling any serious treks in the mountains. Likewise, before unspooling your shiny new 9000lb winch, get trained up - the better to escape intact from your first winching predicament. Like we said at the start, don’t underestimate the degree of difficulty posed by the High Country. People do tend to take the Simpson Desert seriously, due in part to the tyranny of distance that must be overcome just to get out of the blocks and onto the Rig Road, east-bound. But the High Country’s sheer accessibility to Australia’s two most populated cities (and Albury-Wodonga and Canberra) mean that a fair old number of inexperienced and unprepared 4WD owners tootle off to have a crack at it - and for some, the experience ends in tears. |
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