Day 10 – Climes Track and Zeehan    

 Waking up, we were hoping like anything that the bugs would finally be gone.  We were glad to see that they had but we noticed that there was smoke everywhere and were worried that a fire had started near us over night so we quickly packed up and headed in to Zeehan to find out what was going on in the area and if any new fires had started.

 On the road into Zeehan we saw a car flipped, the same model as our Subaru.  We were worried that it may have been a recent accident as the car was not there last night, so we stopped to check it out, along with two other guys that had just driven past.  We were happy to find that there was no one in the car.  We asked the guys about the fires in the area and gladly there were none, the smoke has been blown in all the way from the east coast.  So we decided to turn around and continue on our way back to Climes Track.  Climes track starts at Granville harbour and parallels the coast to finish at Trial Harbour. We quickly found it challenging in places with large rocks, side inclines and lots of eroded gully’s to negotiate, with careful placement of wheels and slow speeds we were able to navigate our way along the track.  First and second gear low range all the way.  It was very scenic with views of the ocean and mountains. 

We made it half way down the track when we came to a creek crossing where the bridge had been washed away but there was an alternative track crossing over the top of a waterfall.  There was a pretty good chance we would have made the alternative track, but also a risk of getting into trouble.  It was pretty steep on the opposite side, with some rock ledges to climb to make the ascent potentially difficult, especially with no winching points above.  If the car became hung up on a rock, the car could have slipped sideways enough to be pointing towards the side of the track, and down the waterfall.  Even if that didn’t happen, it would be very difficult to reverse back over the rocky waterfall.  It was starting to rain a little as well, so reluctantly we turned back, not game to take the risk of this new obstacle.

 After another hour we returned to the start of Climes track and headed back into Zeehan, thinking about where we would stay for the night.  On the way back, John tried to pump the tyres back up with the small compressor.  For some reason it was pumping very slowly, it became hot, and blew a fuse, so we drove slowly back into Zeehan to find an air pump.  In town John received a phone call confirming his job with Ford next year is confirmed, and he just has to sign the papers, excellent news. 

We decided to go for a drive to the Zeehan spray tunnel, which we did last time in the Excel.  It is 2.2 metres wide, and only just big enough to drive a car through, the Landcruiser mirrors seemed to be touching the walls on either side.

We drove off down to Trial Harbour about 20 kilometres from Zeehan, and were happy to find it a much nicer place to stay than last night’s effort at Duck creek.  The town was much nicer than Granville Harbour, with no bugs and nice little camping areas tucked into the scrub beside the beach.  There was even a nice clean composting toilet.  We made some pasta for tea, and went for a walk by the beach and through the town.  The town houses were well kept little beach homes.  They had a sense of humour with house names on display like ‘wywurrie’ ‘anybeerldo’ ‘boagsldoo’.

 Today we were also noticing that the horrible bugs from the day before had been biting us over night.  We both had spots all over our legs, hips, chest and arms, they were soooo itchy.  When you started scratching one, your whole body went itchy.  I will never ever ever again camp with swarms of biting bugs.

 We finished the night watching the movie demolition man on the laptop, I fell asleep before the end.

4WD  GPS Landcruiser

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