A couple of weeks ago I and a few mates had the opportunity to go out hunting at the weekend. The location was going to be just west of the Brindabella ranges at a camp out of Canberra, originally forecast was a fine and sunny but as the day slowly approached it appeared this was not going to be the case. Only a few days before the snow came down and covered the Brindabella ranges so that certain parts had to be closed off.
Our prime goal to this trip was to secure some feral pigs and more importantly parts of feral pigs to assist in the training of Scarlet (my new hunting dog). The plan was to leave at Saturday lunchtime and come back the following day.
The area that we were going to hunting is a fantastic four-wheel-drive playground and I personally have led a few full drive trips out that way, however I had only ever being out there in the dry season. Winter on the other hand most of that area is closed off due to the very slippery conditions, the unpredictable weather. I knew going into this that it had a possibility to go very bad very quickly if our vehicles and a*re were not prepared to these conditions.
Having a look at my equipment and the things I needed to do to ensure safe and successful trip I suddenly realised that I needed to do some work to my truck. First I have to replace the two rear tires as they were getting very low and even on normal roads they were becoming very slippery. A quick trip to the tyre shop in Fyshwick and with two BFG Mud terrain at $265 each, that problem was fixed, now to address the problem of my broken winch. If you remember from one of my other Bloggs we recovered 3 four-wheel drives that was stuck off a road, in the process of doing this I blew up one of the solenoid they control the in motion of my winch. No problem, all I have to do is find another solenoid... Yeah right!!!!
After pulling the winch apart I discovered that the extra heat had also melted parts of the metal components that hold the winch together, I now had a bigger problem than I anticipated. I jumped on the Internet and did little bit of research and found that I can purchase a 200 AMP solenoid from Melbourne $75 delivered. The beauty of this solenoid is that it replaces the two solenoid which are in the current winch and it gives me the ability to relocate the control box from on top of a bull bar to under the bonnet. For only another $32 I also purchased remote control unit that is easily attached to this new solenoid. Now instead of having 85 AMP solenoid I have a 200 AMP solenoid and not only a remote control, but once again I have free space on my bull bar.
One other thing I want to fix up before we went out, and that was to add some roof racks so I could wring out by working lights. Boy wasn't I up or a surprise. The cost of roof racks is horrendous, to get to roof racks on the top of my canopy cost 500 and something dollars, then if you want them installed its another hundred and $160.. Ouch. So all in all it was a very expensive exercise, but my truck was finally ready and only in the nick of time as I was still installing the winch only 15 minutes before the guys were to arrive at my house.
A quick pack up and away we went. The Brindabella Road was covered in not only the remnants of the snow and ice but also the fallen trees that had been taken down by the gale force winds that happen in this area. Was this a sign of things to come, I personally hope it wasn't, however as were getting closer and closer to our destination it seemed to be getting colder and the pockets of snow were getting larger. The cars were sliding all over the road and we were having a ball.
Arriving at camp with three hours of daylight left we quickly unpacked the trucks and headed out into terrain that not only had patches is snow on the ground but it was also raining and snowing. I must admit I was very happy to be wearing my Stoney Creek Hunting gear, as it was doing a fantastic job in not only keeping the warm but also dry. The rest of the afternoon was spent following game trails and surveying the area to any signs of pigs and although there was a heap of game trails pig sign was only very minimal. On arriving back at camp Paul an I discussed what we had seen, while I didn't see any game Paul did see the remnants of two feral horses not that far from our camp so I decided I will check them out in the morning as pigs love dead animals to feast on.
Sure enough the next morning there was fresh sign that was only hours old around and leading up to the horse carcasses but not a pig to be seen. At the end of the trip although we didn't see any pigs, we did have the chance to get to know each other a little bit better and spend some precious time out in the Australian bush.
Posted
Aug 15 2008, 07:49 AM
by
Brendan