Are you an 4WD owner?

 who doesn't use it as it should be used?

 Like Me...

4WD should spend time in the dirt

I bought a 4WD with the view that I was going to make use of its capabilities and go off road.  Ye ha : first  test drive was short trip from Mount Garnet to Irvinebank (click to se the map).

Great 1st adventure!!! - a few KM's out of Irvinebank and crossing a dry river bed we hit a road and busted and bent the underside of the new 3 month old 4WD. Got  to Irvinebank had lunch got back in the truck and limped home to Ravenshoe. Rang the insurance company and they said it would be uplifted to be repaired and 4 weeks later it returned. 

Thats the best it's done as a 4WD in its 8 year life now a mature aged truck.

It nearly became a so-called Toorak tractor, unknown to dirt roads, from a suburban residential area.

Recently it took an excursion from Cairns northern beaches to Hughenden via Mount Garnet on the Kennedy development road (click to see the map) with real dirt roads...

Great trip, the 4WD made it work. I Made a booking at the Hughenden Allen Terry Caravan Park and asked the manger the best way to get there and he said he does Hughenden to Innisfail via the Kennedy development road and it takes them 6 hours as long as you keep a good pace!! 

So we did just that and kept our average speed around 80 km's per hour or better and did the trip in just over 7:30 hrs from Trinity Beach to Hughenden. It did involve getting off the road completely when a road train was coming at you and coming to an near stop. The dirt roads are very bumpy with soft edges and when transiting between dirt and bitumen it can come with a Hugh thump and then the occasional corrugation and buffeting a little sideways. 

But the Dogs loved it....    

There were travelers attempting this road with a normal sedan pulling a caravan or camper vans ... !! Good luck to them - I would expect that if they had crockery and it wasn't stuck down there could be issues.

The two main shires we drove through were Etheridge and Flinders and you could tell as soon as you drove out of one and into the other. Flinders shire roads were well maintained particularly the dirt roads were much better and the verges were cleared well back so you were able to see if ROO's were about to cross. 

Big day of traveling :

The trip back 3 days later we decided to clock every piece of dirt to see how many Km's of fun were had..!! 0 to 73 km's got us from Hughenden to the 1st section of dirt road and then the dirt went like this .. with a total of 100 km in total. 

On Dirt - Off Dirt

73-86

108-113

116-124

130-149

164-174

177-182

187-210

218-229

239-245

On the way back we made one stop before lunch at Bundock Creek to give the dogs a swim

There was a pretty special memorial in Hughenden that you should take you dog to  

What makes this road fantastic : There was so little traffic

Great drive - Great fun