Levuka Trip report

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

Decided to head out to Levuka on the weekend with the family, just for an overnighter.

It was just Shan, Sakura and I as a few others that were going to come couldn't make it. (You missed a good one guys!)

We headed out a bit later on Saturday morning stopping at Rathdowney for morning tea and for Sakura to have a play.







It was quite overcast on Saturday morning but started to clear through the day.




I had a chat to Robert, the owner, when we arrived at Levuka around Midday.
He said it had been quite dry out there for a while now and he didn't expect the forecast storm would come to much on Saturday afternoon/evening.
We paid the $60 for 2 days and also $10 for a 35kg bag of firewood.
You get given a sack which you can fill with wood from near the homestead that Robert has halved.
Luckily I packed the new Fiskars axe which made light work of the VERY hard wood!

Shan was quite amused by this sign on our arrival to the campsite itself.




We had a bite to eat for lunch and put up the tent, deciding the rest of the setup could wait til later when it was hopefully a bit cooler, the 42 degree heat taking its toll on all 3 of us.

We had a good drive around for the afternoon, poking around the southern end of the property.
I did my best to get stuck, taking a wrong turn down track 4 which Robert had warned me about earlier. (marked with purple cross on the map)




At the bottom of this decent was a washout which would have made the Prado slide straight into a tree. Luckily there was enough room to turn around and head back up the slippery slope with my tail between my legs.

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

We returned to camp a few hours later after filling up the firewood sack at the homestead.

Still 42 degrees, it hadn't budged from that all day. Made it hard chopping firewood and keeping it dry from all the dripping sweat!

We finished unpacking the Prado and set about inflating the airbed with the ARB compressor when suddenly a cooler breeze started blowing through. As we looked at the mountainside just to the West we watched a wave of rain rolling in.
It was a race against time, mother nature vs the speed of the compressor!!
Luckily the compressor finished filling the bed just as the rain started to hit us, we scrambled to pull everything under the Prado awning, firewood included.

Sakura was full of beans at this stage and decided she would rather run around in the pouring rain than take shelter under the awning.




It was a refreshing change and one that was short lived as 20 minutes later the worst had passed over and the heat returned.

That afternoon/evening was spent relaxing around the campfire (for atmosphere, not heat!! lol), having a few beers and watching Sakura play in the cow shit :/




I do need to be protective of my beer these days too!!

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

It was a restless night unfortunately, partly due to the heat, partly due to Sakura being restless and also due to the bloody cows who decided munching on grass right outside our tent during the night sounded like a good idea.
I don't know which was worse, the chewing of cud or their multitude of stomachs squirming noisily with digestive juices!!

After a while I had had enough and armed with a torch and just wearing underwear, I exited the tent to confront the culprits.
I swear I heard them snicker as I approached putting on my best F'off growl and stamping my feet.

I got a little too close for comfort (for me!!) as one turned and squared up with me!!

That's all I need! I can hear the news now!

Man rescued after being gouged by cow horns.... wearing just his underwear!

Lucky for me the cow saw the funny side and took off back to tell her friends.

The next morning we woke (were all ready awake) early and had breakfast before packing up.
The showers out there are nice and hot btw, (and no signs of Brown Snake boys!!).

We didn't muck around too much as we wanted to beat the heat today.

Packed up, we hit the tracks, heading on the southern side again to do a bit more, encountering a pack of snickering cows along the way...





It wasn't long before I had (almost) bitten off more than I could chew.....

A steep, slippery descent, just sliding past a tree downhill.....
(Yellow cross on map)




I had walked this bit first before heading down and got Shan to guide me past the tree.

What I didn't look at was just how hairy the other side was. hmmmmm....




After having a good look at wether to attack the other side I decided to play it safe (so I thought!) and turn around in the tight squeeze at the bottom to head back up where I came from.

That slope had different ideas!
Several attempts had me thinking..... I could really do with a winch right now!!

It wasn't to be so I turned around at the bottom once more, the "hairy" side was the only way out of here on our own.... if I could make it in one piece.
Luckily, sheer skill (insert truck full of luck here) and we were safely continuing on our merry way.

A quick change of underpants for me and some heart pills for Shan and all was well!

[prado2004 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close prado2004]

sounds like good fun!

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

The views at the top of the southern side before the playground were amazing...




After having a short break I had a play around in the wombat hills and ascents/decents in the playground before we continued to the northen side of the property.

But not before I found a nasty leech has decided to poke through my sock for a feed!!











All the tracks marked in red is what we did on the weekend, this was all at a fairly relaxed pace and if we had arrived earlier and stayed later on Sunday we could have done the majority of the tracks there.





We had a stop for lunch after having some fun on Havoc Crossing and Dingos Run, all of us thoroughly enjoying our time away and getting away from the city.

[Chewbacca Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chewbacca]

Great trip report and pics Dan, Levuka is high on my list of places to visit. Gee you know that you are keen when you have a fire after a 42C day. I bet the chairs were well back from the fire.

I noticed in one of your photos that you have the coleman instant up tent. We are currently looking at buying the instant 8 as it looks great value for money. How do you find the tent?

Cheers Matt

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

Hi Matt

The Coleman Instant up tents are hard to beat for the money.
I have both the 8 and 10, have squeezed 5 people in the 10 at Christmas on Straddie.

Very easy to put up and take down, the 8 can be done on your own, easier with assistance with fly on the 10.

The only negative that I can see, not that I have had to worry about it yet, is it is very lightweight.

I wouldn't like to get caught in excessively windy conditions as I think that would really put it to the test.

I have had both the 8 and 10 in the rain, both held up fine.

The only thing with the 8 to be aware of is it doesn't have a "full" fly. Both sides are arched and the roof is also mesh, not solid.
I imagine if you had horizontal rain this could be an issue.

Otherwise... thoroughly recommend them, great value and easy as.

[macaroon1 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close macaroon1]

Lovely report and great pics, thanks for sharing. Your daughter looks a similar age to mine....will have to encourage us/her to get out into the country rather than watching all the ..s h...tuff on TV!! Cant beat kids playing in the rain and cow shit!?? I'll have to find Levuka on my GPS and get there one day. I don't recall you having a rear bar when I met you at 'The Springs' but then again I could be wrong.

Cheers Charles

[Chewbacca Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chewbacca]

Thanks for your feedback, I stumbled across a couple of youtube videos on them recently and was impressed with how easy they are to set up. I was just worried about how they would hold up to the weather.
Did you buy yours online? I have found a few on ebay, looks like you can only get the 4 or 6 from BCF.

Cheers Matt.

Hi Matt

The Coleman Instant up tents are hard to beat for the money.
I have both the 8 and 10, have squeezed 5 people in the 10 at Christmas on Straddie.

Very easy to put up and take down, the 8 can be done on your own, easier with assistance with fly on the 10.

The only negative that I can see, not that I have had to worry about it yet, is it is very lightweight.

I wouldn't like to get caught in excessively windy conditions as I think that would really put it to the test.

I have had both the 8 and 10 in the rain, both held up fine.

The only thing with the 8 to be aware of is it doesn't have a "full" fly. Both sides are arched and the roof is also mesh, not solid.
I imagine if you had horizontal rain this could be an issue.

Otherwise... thoroughly recommend them, great value and easy as.

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

Thanks for your feedback, I stumbled across a couple of youtube videos on them recently and was impressed with how easy they are to set up. I was just worried about how they would hold up to the weather.
Did you buy yours online? I have found a few on ebay, looks like you can only get the 4 or 6 from BCF.

Cheers Matt.

I have bought both through BCF in store.

I always shop around first then get them to beat my best price.

[gumboot Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close gumboot]

Excellent trip report and photos Dan,
Sorry i couldn't be there, looks like a top weekend.

Great photo of you Protecting your Beer. I know that feeling!

There is a group buy happening for some winches on the forum that you should look into. You might need one for the cape trip...

[talk2tiny Moderated member Find all posts View Profile Close talk2tiny]

Thanks for your feedback, I stumbled across a couple of youtube videos on them recently and was impressed with how easy they are to set up. I was just worried about how they would hold up to the weather.
Did you buy yours online? I have found a few on ebay, looks like you can only get the 4 or 6 from BCF.

Cheers Matt.

A bit of extra feedback regarding the instant up tent if you're interested, we had the wanderer version of the same tent for the Simpson trip. After 20 odd days of being set up and packed up each day, it had developed holes in the mesh windows on the inner of the tent. Basically, since the poles are fixed to the tent between the fly and the main tent, when it was packed up and vibrating around, the poles were rubbing on the fly mesh. That stuff isn't very sturdy on the wanderer one and I don't remember it being much better on the coleman one so I suspect it might suffer the same problem. If you're not going to do much corrugations work it may not be an issue but after we got back there were 4 or 5 nearly fist sized holes in the mesh so we took it back and went for the oztrail tourer 9. Mind you if it's not going to be jostled around a lot, it was a good quick tent to put up which my unfit 65 year old dad did by himself most days and with the guy ropes set up, it was quite solid. We had a few roaring windy days and never had an issue with it's strength.

[rob_macca67 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close rob_macca67]

Dan... Looks like a great weekend, but cooler conditions might have been better....

BTW: when did u get the the Kaymar rear Bar ???

[DSS150 Find all posts View Profile Close DSS150]

Macca, got the bar a couple of weeks back.

Second hand, got it powdercoated. Also have the second wheel carrier just waiting for a spare rim.

Gumboot, certainly looking at possibility of getting a winch before the Cape.

[Richoson Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Richoson]

Hi Dan

Dissapointed I couldn't make it but the little dog was quite sick from the tick solution, I have used that one before and it was ok, may have to try another. The track you turned around early in the piece usually has about 18 inches of mud in the bottom that gets dragged up the track and makes it impassable...both ways, I have seen folks spend all day winching to get out of there.

See ya on the tracks, Richo.