Recently we took Little FJ and Retro Van on a 3 night adventure at Eungella Dam. The dam is approximately 3 hours drive south west of Airlie Beach, and situated over 560m above sea level. It truly was a beautiful place to stay, and with only a handful of other campers at any one time it seemed like we had the place to ourselves. However sometimes that isn't always a good thing...
It was Monday afternoon, on a dry, hot day by the dam. We'd had some lunch and were looking for something to do to pass the time. Dan had scouted out a sandy part of the dam, and decided that it was solid enough to take Little FJ down with our chairs and some afternoon snacks. We rolled out the awning, set up our chairs and a table so that we had our feet cooling in the water and spent around an hour chilling off. The dogs had followed us down and were frolicking around in the water.
About three beers later we thought we'd better pack up and head back to camp. Fires are allowed at the dam and we'd found a pit already set up, including part of a 44 gallon drum that was being used as a windbreak. That morning we'd hunted around for some firewood, and had brought with us a whole chicken and our camp oven. It was time to get the fire going for some coals and a roasted chicken for dinner. However things don't always go to plan, do they? We packed up, jumped in Little FJ and headed off the sand. We managed to travel about 6 feet forwards, started to turn up the bank, and then -thwup- down we went. Hard.
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| Oops. |
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| Not much better from this angle, either. |
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| Yes, that's water at the door line. |
No dramas. We've got a winch. We'll get out of this. However, the closest tree was at least 50 metres away and roughly a 45 degree angle from Little FJ. We gave it a go, though. To no avail. We had a tree trunk protector around the tree, then attached to it was a winch extension strap and finally the winch. We didn't move. We were stuck. So we tried adding a snatch strap to the winch extension strap to get a double line pull off the winch (the winch cable ran up to the snatch strap and then doubled back and attached to the recovery point on Litlle FJ). Uhm, nope.
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| The winch is attached to the larger tree on the right. |
It was about this point that some frustration was released by Dan, in the form of some very colourful language. I started to get a bit worried that we wouldn't get out. As we were giving it another go, a family of four turned up in a *cough mumble Ford Ranger* and gave us a hand. We used the snatch strap and the Ranger to try and pull Little FJ out. First from the front - no luck. Then from the back - still no luck. Then back to the front - success! Well...we managed to move forward about 2 inches. By this time, the sand further up the bank was starting to give way and it was becoming unsafe to try and snatch out anymore. The Ranger would have ended up stuck as well! We had let the tyre pressure down on the two tyres we had access to. We were digging the sand out from around the tyres, and it would fall back in again. The driver of the Ranger had gone to find a nearby farmer and organised him to come down with his tractor to pull us out.
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| Sink, Sank, Sunk. |
It was like quicksand. The belly of Little FJ had touched the sandy base of the dam and it was acting like a suction cup. The driver's side tyres had spun themselves into the sand as well. We were close to abandoning ship and leaving Little FJ to soak. It had been in the same spot for nearly 2 1/2 hours. But Dan was determined. As soon as he'd moved forward those few inches, he went hell for leather. He continued to dig out some of the sand from around the tyres and the underbelly, and attached the winch to the tree again. Finally, he was able to break the suction, get enough power and purchase and pop up out of the quicksand. What a mission! Not the best time to leave the Maxx Traxx at home. We profusely thanked the family in the Ranger for stopping to help, and limped back to camp. It was too late to start our coals for dinner so our roast chicken got pushed back to the next night. At least we all came home intact!
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| It's just a little bit of mud. |
We were very fortunate this time. I don't want to imagine what would have happened if we didn't get some extra help. It's led to a new rule for the rest of our trip - no parking in any dams! I don't think either of us are too keen to go through that again. At least there was still some cold beers at the end of it.
