My IMD was a sort of spur of the moment thing which started as an idea for a quick 80km return trip up the highway for lunch, really just so that I could say I participated.

My IMD was a sort of spur of the moment thing which started as an idea for a quick 80km return trip up the highway for lunch, really just so that I could say I participated.

Weather was pretty ordinary and we (Newie Jr and I) set off in showery rain. Moking up the highway in the rain didn't seem like much fun, so took the back roads up the mountain to Murrurndi which was much better. We have had a lot of rain over the past few months though, so the gravel sections were pretty rough and washed out, which made for a slower trip than usual, but still fine as we were in no rush.

While having lunch looking out at the drizzle over the mountains, it seemed like a good idea to go and explore some back mountain roads I've been curious about for a while  . For those who don't know the area, Murrurundi sits at the bottom of a mountain range that marks the northern end of the Hunter Valley.

Headed of on known roads to Timor, which is a nice drive in itself, but then got more adventurous and turned off onto a road that quickly turned into more of a two wheel track. This is a public road, but really looks like a farm track for most of it's length. Looking at a map, I could see that it eventually led to another track which would loop around and spit us out on the highway about 15km from home, but I was really not optimistic we would make it that far, as they were all tracks rather than roads, most of which either wound their way around the mountain ranges, or when down at lower altitudes, spent most of their time criss crossing creeks. The objective was really just to see how far we could get - hopefully without getting stuck  .

As it turned out we got a fair way - further than I thought to be honest. There were a few boggy patches we just scraped through and a couple of short but deep(ish) and rocky creek crossings which saw us out rearranging rocks beforehand and drying out electrics afterwards, but the Moke performed admirably right up until we reached the greasy muddy section shown in the last post. There was a lot of water on and around the tracks, although thankfully the creeks had come down a fair way to what I imagine they would have been a week or so back.

Some beautiful scenery though, especially when everything is so lush and green at the moment, and we drove for a couple of hours without seeing another vehicle

After being turned around at our boggy gateway, we retraced our steps back a little way and took another gravel road through the Crawney Pass and came in the back way to Nundle. By this time it was almost 6.00pm and we were still an hour or so from home, so we decided to stop at the pub for dinner and give the kangaroos a chance to thin out for the evening before heading home.

So a quick run up the highway for lunch turned into about 260km trip and saw us home around 8.00pm with a filthy Moke and rather keen for a nice warm shower - perfect way to spend IMD