White Gum Farm – Trip Report
For my first trip leader event I chose one of Aria’s and I favourite spots, White Gum Farm. It is 20 minutes out of York. White Gum is on an active light weight air strip where aircrafts of all types fly in and out. White Gum has an array of things to see and do, and spectacular sunsets which all members enjoyed thoroughly.
There was a great turn out of 11 car’s and 1 visitor. We arrived on the Friday where I scored my personal favourite spot to set up. It wasn’t long before I was out on the 4wd obstacle track checking it out and planning the next days 4wding. The first night we had a few beverages around the fire and relaxed. As the night went on laughs were had and we were serenaded to sleep by the snores of a near by camping group.
Saturday morning it was time to air down and take members out to the 4wd area. It was awesome taking some of our less experienced 4wders over obstacles that they cleared easily and moved on to the bigger stuff to have more of a challenge. Shout out to Julia for the awesome effort of getting herself and her car to do the bowl obstacle that many of our experienced drivers chose not to! Way to go Julia! Great efforts by our new members Geoff and Cathy on the track.
Our club president Andrew gave us plenty of entertainment with getting himself spectacularly bogged in a deep hole that took 3 cars and every bit of experience and equipment we had with no power to the car, fused out winches and broken snatch straps we had to take a break and go get help from neighbouring campers to help winch him out. Out of the mud surfaced a 4wd and a muddy Andrew who needed to be towed back to camp by “The girls” with the pink strap and pink recovery hitch. Yes, I’m not going to let him live this one down any time soon! Thankfully Andrew did a bit of bush mechanics, got the car running again and got to enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Big thanks to Sam for teeing up with the two Collies and trying to get the big man out of his big whoopsie.
Michael S and I went on a hike to “the edge” at sunset to check out the amazing view as the sun went down off the edge of the property. The fire was lit and warm by the time we got back where members gathered and shared laughs and enjoyed the night keeping warm.
The next morning some packed up and made their way home. Trevor Liz and Tim and I went out for another 4wd on the track where Trev got to try out his new to him 200 series.
All in all, a great weekend supported by members, obstacles mastered, a few big whoopsies, lessons learned, experience gained, laughs had and a very enjoyable weekend.
Till next time,
Sarah Jayne
