4WD Tryout - Bag the Swag

With plans hatching for a trip soon to Maytown; and then a longer trip to Cape York, we went for a weekend 4WD tryout to test all the toys, gadgets and essentials. Saturday morning saw us loading the Nissan Patrol with all the gear: double swag, cooker, solar panel, eskie (the 12v fridge is awaiting rewiring), and the new toy, a Hero6 Gopro. The Patrol drives well on a new set of all terrain tyres; sports an awning and a roof rack outside; then an inverter, a fridge soon, and CB UHF radio inside.

Off we went up the Kuranda zigzag mountain road to a convenient 4WD road, the Clohesy River Road, which has lots of river crossings.

It also has a really dramatic, ancient strangler fig tree accessed via a delightful boardwalk that took us past all the scratchings and humungous nesting mound of our friends, the orange-footed scrubfowl.

Next up we recrossed the rivers and headed off to Davies Creek, along the 4WD track to the upper campground in the eucalyptus forest bush.

Unrolling the swag was easy, then putting up the awning, followed by the cooker on its stand.

A large lace monitor scrabbled up a tree, then hung upside down to watch every move we made - maybe previous campers had shared treats with him.

Chilled white wine from the esky put a nice finishing touch to the day as we mused over next adventures whilst gazing into the wood fire that helped smoke out the local midges.

Gen was sceptical of our LED lights which looked very dim before undergoing an amazing surge in light power as soon as darkness fell. A gentle night amble to inspect the bushes for bugs was followed by more wine and then the first night in the double swag.

Rising early, we broke camp. The swag on its own is simple, but the swag rolled together with its mattress is a squidgy, heavy monster that takes a lot of taming. Once overcome and wrestled into the swag bag, the next struggle was to get the whole shebang onto the roof and strap it down. Nah, nice idea, but we need to get a tent.

We drove down the creek road, popped into the Davies Creek Falls for some morning pics, then continued down to the amazing flat rock expanses where the river danced across swimming holes and rugged rock formations.

Last stop for the day was another visit to Clohesy River Road to play with the GoPro. Robert had downloaded the remote control app onto his phone; and Gen had mounted the GoPro onto the licence plate. Off we went through the river crossings with the GoPro recording and getting baptised with river water.