After a long wet week we set out for Paruna at 4pm, later than we planned but that four-letter word work had interfered with our plans.  Apart from blowing my high beam at the front gate (again) we had a dream run up to Kora Bore, particularly as the whole trip we were running in front of a big storm.  After arriving, a quick tea, we settled into the shed and watched the communal flat fill up with the most water I think any of us have ever seen at Paruna.  The last to arrive that night were Frank and Lyn, they had followed the storm and told of the havoc it had created at Karoonda, so in all we had a lucky night on the trip up and at Paruna having missed the savage weather at the camp site.

Saturday saw an improvement in the weather.  Latecomers slowly arrived throughout the morning.  A quiet day with the construction of PUP being completed, some spent the day just relaxing, others went out to play in the sand and explore the property.  George put the finishing touches to the grand new fireplace while Graeme demonstrated the art of tractor dismounting and PTO dodging.  We watched with awe but no, Graeme will have to withdraw his application for the Vienna Boys Choir as the PTO did not give him the required modifications.

With the evening approaching we started preparing Dinner.  I have learnt one thing, cooking camp oven dinners for 46 people is not a profession I intend to take up in the near future.  But apart from one lot of spuds and some burnt crackling on the pork all turned out well.   Well done, Lyn, Lone and Jock.   After dinner we had the PUP opening and official dedication by Royalty (Chris in a Tiara).

Then Victor and Svedka took over for the night and presented the quiz night.   I did offer my professional assistance as head hint giver, but I think that not everyone really believed some of my clues.  The night went well thanks to Denise and Dean’s efforts and thank you to all that participated.   The other highlight of the evening was the RFDS raffle and plenty of prizes thanks to your generosity, some people did well but a special thanks to our young quiz assistants who collected sheets and drew the raffle.   Of course the campfire revelry went on into the wee hours, but every one seemed well at breakfast.

Sunday Morning saw the traditional club bacon and eggs breakfast, cooked by Jock and some helpers.  Then Ralph fixed his tyre and led off the day trip.  For those of us who stayed behind, we spent the day cleaning up the camp ovens and generally taking it easy.   That evening we tested out the new fireplace as a BBQ using both Gerry’s BBQ plates from the old fireplace and George’s patent lazy Susan rotating BBQ plate.  When can we motorise it George?  And then yet another night around the camp fire, although the theme to this night was musical chairs, everyone seemed to change chairs every 10 mins so you never knew if your seat would be free if you could find it.

Monday morning, yet more bacon and eggs (diet time I reckon), pack up and the steady trickle of people departing.  A group of us decided to have lunch a Karoonda, rush hour as usual, that must be the most profitable takeaway in the mallee, had to settle for chiko rolls and dim sims instead of pies, lucky Gerry is multi dieted and likes both, but I did see an Ice coffee in his hand I think, so not all was lost.

Another successful club dinner, but can I recommend BBQ and salad next year, it takes me that long to grow back my eyebrows.

Stuart

At the last meeting I put forward a plan for a day trip as an extension to the Paruna dinner weekend. The plan was to depart from the campsite Sunday morning after breakfast and then we would drive through Peebinga onto the Border track and head south toward Pinnaroo.

At Pinnaroo stop for Fuel & Food, then back off again along the Mallee highway to Panitya and travel North up Panitya North road to the Rock Holes. After that stop we would head back to camp.

After many hours of meticulous planning, the trip was off to an ominous start.  I parked my 4wd near the main campfire to assume the starting position of Trip leader, when Grumpa kindly asked me if my left front tyre was meant to be flat. Panic started to set in as this was not setting a good example; Len remarked that, as the tyre was only flat on the bottom that the leak must be at the bottom. Oddly enough this later proved to be correct as the bead was popped from the rim at the bottom. I cursed the guy who had fitted the tyre for not putting it on right as there was no way it could have been caused by the way I was driving the day before.

Greg came over and handed me the keys to the position of Trip Leader, they consisted of a bunch of very pretty red ribbons embossed with ORVC in yellow, the idea being that as I sent Dawn out to open a gate she would attach a ribbon for TC, this would remind him to shut the gate. These proved to be very valuable items of technology considering that our TC was Dean.

9.30 am we were off, ten or twelve 4wd’s driving down the highway.  We missed the turn off to Peebinga, however that was easily fixed by using Lens expert navigation skills to guide us to the next turn off to Peebinga.

From Peebinga we travelled along Wall road in search of the elusive Border Track, as luck would have it we managed to drive straight past the entry point and straight onto the Panitya North Road. It was at this point I decided to surprise everyone with a sudden change in route. We would travel south along this road and hopefully find the entry to the Border track from the southern end, along the way we would look for a Geocache called (Abandoned Armour). A few kilometres further on we came to a junction, at which the GPS was pointing to go left a further 25.6km. At this point the group decided we split and send out a scouting party to search for the treasure. So 4 or 5 vehicles went in search of the Geocache while the rest stayed back for R&R.

After some 45 minutes of left and right turns we arrived at Murrayville with the GPS guiding us to a dump consisting of old World War 2 relics. The cache was found inside an old Armoured Tank, it was quite full of little trinkets. The find was logged into the visitor’s book and we took a music cassette out of the cache and left one we had. We all then backtracked to find the others; along the way we all stopped to remove a couple of fallen tree branches from the road and then continued on to the rest of the group.

Finally we were all reunited and on our way to Pinnaroo.  We found a lovely little park with some tables where we could have lunch and enjoy the winter sunshine.

After lunch we all headed out of town across the railway tracks to turn left along the Border track, eventually the track offered us a chance to use the 4wd, a couple of vehicles had trouble with soft sand, with Mark (a guest from the Land Cruiser Club) finding that the wheels turn around a lot easier if you don’t point them into the bank.

Driving along the undulating sand track in amongst the Mallee trees proved to be very rewarding.  After a couple more wrong turns, and with Lens help, we finally made it to the Rock Holes.

These holes in a granite outcrop were made by Aboriginal people in order to collect water runoff after rain. These were made by lighting a fire in a dry hole, which would cause the rock to crack with the heat. Successive visitors to the hole would remove the cracked rock and repeat the process.

After some discussion between Greg, Len, Dean, Keith & me it was decided to hide a Geocache on behalf of the Club, somewhere in the vicinity of the Rock Holes.

As it was now getting quite late in the afternoon it was decided we could get back to camp quicker by continuing north toward the Border Track, then follow the track north for 10km, then turn left for some 15km to the main highway, then head for the camp site. With Lens trusty laptop GPS navigation system we all headed off back to camp full of confidence we would get there before dark.

On arriving back at camp I was quite surprised by people saying what a great day out they all had, considering that I had seemingly tried very hard to get us all lost.

A successful trip is when we all get back to camp with a smile on our dials and our vehicles undamaged, anyway our President wasted no time in retrieving the ribbons of office. 

Written by Ralph Olson