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Trip report – Lake Cobbler It’s a funny thing! The more time you have to prepare for a trip, the longer it takes. It being the holiday season, I had all day to get organised for Lake Cobbler. Luxury! I had it all planned. On the Friday morning there would be a quick trip to Kmart to get some gas mantles, the deli for some tasty morsels, then the supermarket for the rest of the food and finally Dan Murphy’s for some liquid refreshment. In Kmart they had those portable gas stoves on special for $29.95. You know the sort. Single burner, run off a butane cartridge. No more clumsy stove, no more gas bottles to refill. What a bargain. I’ll buy one, no I won’t I’ll buy two. Do the toast on one while the bacon and eggs are cooking on the other. The rest of the shopping went smoothly until I arrived at Dan Murphy’s. There was a tasting of Clare Valley wines in full swing. Hadn’t tried a Taylor’s Cab Sav for years. All in all the shopping took about two hours longer than planned. Back home, still plenty of time to check out all the gear and pack the truck. Next thing I knew it was 4:00pm and I was scheduled to depart at 4:15 to make the 5:00pm rendezvous at Coldstream. Threw the remaining items in the back of the truck (one of which rattled all the way to Mansfield) and set off. No sooner had I departed than I heard Graeme Giles’s dulcet tones on the CB. He was about 5Km ahead of me. Traffic was quite busy until we reached Mount Evelyn where it ground to a halt due to an accident. After ˝ an hour’s delay we were on our way again, finally arriving at Coldstream 15 minutes late to find Graeme plus David and Barbara Walduck waiting. A call to Andrew Rossiter on the mobile confirmed that he was ˝ hour behind. We agreed to meet up in Mansfield. The drive was very pleasant apart from another 20-minute delay in Yarra Glen where they were resurfacing the bridge (isn’t that bridge fairly new?). We arrived in Mansfield about ˝ an hour behind schedule at 7:30 as the sun was beginning to sink in the western sky. We made an executive decision. Graeme and I would leave so that we could set up camp at Pineapple Flat before dark and David would wait in Mansfield for Andrew to catch up – mistake No 1. I lent my map of the area to David as I had comprehensive route instructions and key waypoints entered into the GPS – mistake No 2. Zero trip meter in Mansfield it said. 32Km at Mirimbah turn left on to dirt road. Spot on you beauty! This was going to be a breeze. 6.2Km TL at Telephone Box Junction. Spot on again! After 26Km we should have been close, the track was descending as if towards a river, so we weren’t worried. 29Km still no sign and we were on a new track that looked as though woodcutters had made it. We were lost. By now it was quite dark a check on the GPS revealed that we were 6Km south west of Pineapple Flat. Two things became very apparent. A GPS is not much help without a map and track routes are no good at all if you take a wrong turn. We decided to retrace our steps and use the GPS to get us there taking any rack that seemed to head in the right direction. We came across Westons track a reasonable track that definitely headed in the right direction. Pineapple Flat was now 6.5Km away. After 3Km we encountered a huge mountain ash fallen across the track. This was the mother of all mountain ash trees. Even Milton’s chainsaw would have baulked at this one. And this was in the dark. Graeme and I held a council of war to decide whether to bed down where we were for the night and try to find the others in daylight when Andrew came through loud and clear on the trust CB. They were already at the campsite, had lit a fire and were enjoying a “coldie”. After much relaying of GPS fixes with Andrew consulting various maps, he worked out were we were. Westons Track did indeed lead to Pineapple Flat but if we couldn’t get round the tree we would have to take a circuitous route of some 20km to get there. Needless to say, we took the long route and finally made it to campsite at 11:30PM, three hours later than planned. We were too tired to cook dinner but Barbara Walduck plied us with her wonderful croissant and butter pudding, which we washed down with a cleansing port.
Next morning dawned fine and after a leisurely
breakfast we headed off to Lake Cobbler. An interesting drive along the King
River with a great photo opportunity at King Hut. Then we had to negotiate “The Sunday morning dawned fair again. Once more we had a leisurely breakfast and we broke camp at about 9:30. The plan was to take the Lake Cobbler Track to the north then return to Pineapple Flat along Wild Horse Track in time for lunch. We hadn’t gone very far when David announced on the CB that he had a puncture. Not a problem, we quickly had the wheel changed. The turn off onto Wild Horse Track brought us into real 4WD country. The steep, narrow track ran along a razorback. Andrew was TL for the day and he quickly got into difficulties on a steep gravely ascent. Andrew was complaining about poor traction. After about four attempts we all got out to assist when Graeme noticed that the front hubs weren’t locked in. Andrew had been driving all weekend, including The Staircase in 2WD! Unfortunately, the rear tyres were distinctly the worse for wear. Finally we made it into Pineapple Flat for a late lunch. This is a great camping area on the King River with plenty of swimming holes and promising looking fishing spots. Now we were on the home run, a quick trip into Mansfield and we’d be home by 5:30. Wrong! We hadn’t gone too far when David came over the airwaves with the plaintive cry “another puncture”. Uh oh, the spare’s already flat, we’ll have to do a bush repair. Finally, after three attempts with a “get you home” kit we had David on the move again. Homeward bound, we stopped in Bonnie Doon for an ice cream. Not much happens in Bonnie Doon when the tide’s out! A very pleasant weekend was had by all. Great scenery, great company, oh and a bit of 4WD activity too! |
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Staircase”. An interesting ascent, definitely not for the faint hearted. At the
top of The Staircase we collected firewood and drove on to Lake Cobbler. There
were a few day trippers but basically we had the place to ourselves and found a
spectacular camp site right on the water’s edge and shaded by big gum trees.
Even the resident kookaburras seemed to make us feel welcome. We enjoyed a
leisurely lunch. The more energetic among us went for a walk to find
Dandongadale Falls then a walk round the lake. That evening I tried to catch
that elusive brown trout but there was to be no fish for dinner that on that
occasion! A very pleasant time was spent in idyllic surroundings.