Doom Valley [6 March 2010]
Our man in the thick of the action (Kevin) sends us this rollicking report of the day's comings and goings (mostly comings it seems! His vehicle seems to say it all...
What a day that was... Four brave souls went in, two with winches and two with heavy right feet, and a team of the best recovery technicians all armed wih spades, (game on!).
In we went from the top end of the track where the nice man had put up a gate to keep people like us out, after a bit of sooth talking from John he moved aside and let us through.
The first part of the track was quite straight forward but in places getting very overgrown. As we progressed things started to slowly deteriorate but with some helpful winching from Mike and Andrew things where progressing quite nicely.
But as with all good things .......... they did come to an end, it was in the "mother" of a hole with an exit that looked like the wall of a sub post office. Mike pulled himself trough with his Su***i with the usual ease then it was my turn, with Mike on the winch tied to a tree and his truck tied to Oddball the S****i had an almighty work-out but with tyres flecking mud everywhere and the winch pulling its heart out things were looking not too bad. But that's where the good times ended, Andrew's recovery took a little bit more effort but was on the roof of the post office safely.
Now he was having a good time eating everything that nature put before him! so with the usual noise speed and momentum thing in he went, it was a valiant atempt, getting to the bottom of the step exit and pushing a hugh amount of mud that was it, several various attempts from the using of Andrew's winch to tying three trucks together failed to the 90 out so after what seemed to be an eternity the only way was to find a place on the single track to turn Mike's S*****i around and with him tied to a tree and with the use of lot pulleys and a lot work from John, Phil and Tim was finally on the move.
Things didn't seem to get much better from then on, but with the recovery crew in action they dug some cavernous gulleys to drain the water from the remaining bottomless holes which eased things quite a bit, at least you could see what you were getting it to!
With the end in sight (80mtrs) every one seemed to kick up gear with passion the winching and tyre spinning the digging THE NOISE from Tim's mighty V8 got noticeably louder ...........................then with a sigh it was all over.
four trucks 2.7 miles 10 hours we survived the dome valley. kev
Mighty thanks to:
John Harvey
Mike
Phil
and all the guys with spades ! good job everyone
Kevin A.
