The day started early with Mark and Arie, Cos and Don meeting up at CJ Pastries in Woodford before 8am. Arie expressed concern that she was crashing a boy's day out - so we made her an honorary boy for the day.
We then had a short run out to the Stony Creek Day use area where we aired down. A nice picnic area with a couple of nice little swimming spots. It also had a few of what looked like large March flies flying around which kept us on the move.
Mark led us off on Branch Creek Road with some quite firm stony tracks through fairly open forest with enormous trees. Very pretty area.
There were patches of dense rainforest - and you can't go through any rainforest without encountering a bit of mud. This was probably the worst of it for the day fortunately - and as slippery as it appeared, none of us had much trouble getting through, but the vehicles definitely need a bath when we get home.
A few ups and down and some slippery spots but nothing that caused too much trouble.
The further west we travelled in the National Park the rainforest gave way to a dryer forest.
We went down on small sidetrack that we thought may go to a vantage point for a view of the hills. While a good viewing platform didn't present itself we did find a nice clearing for late morning tea.
After the break Mark led on to the area along Beacon Road. The tracks dropped down via some very steep hills then we negotiated a section with thick Lantana, which, while it had been trimmed - an extra foot on either side would have been wonderful. At least my newly painted door on Bluebell now blends right in with the rest of the car!
As we left the lantana behind we encountered the most challenging hills of the day. Fortunately this area was quite dry but we still got in some winching practice. This also meant we got a bit of physical exercise - these hills seemed even steeper on foot!
We had a late lunch at Old Brandon's sawmill site. A nice clear area and a few old bits of machinery and infrastructure.
We headed back via Goodla Road to Sandy Creek Road - the countryside even outside the National park was still worth a trip to see.
Many thanks to Mark for leading a terrific day trip.