Sunday 30 October 2016

esCarpade 2016 - Day 8 - Drive home from Griffith

esCarpade 2016 was done and dusted, and all that remained was for Damian and Adam to make the 1300km journey home.  Having checked the almighty Google for road closures and finding nothing of significance, the boys hit the road.

How wrong they would be.








After leaving Lake Cargelligo, the boys encountered a very, very long floodway with some water coverage... 



Pressing on through, they arrived at a stopping point - road closed.



Damian spoke to a couple of locals, and got directions to where they needed to go to get across to the Newell Highway, only to find that road closed also.


With no wish to double back through the floodway, and having already driven an additional 30km or so, the boys did a quick calculation and figured that with the fuel remaining in the tank, and the two spare 10.5L jerry cans, they might just have enough to get to Cobar - just over 200km away.



Of course, this included nearly 100km of dirt road...




After using the jerry cans, the remaining 30km of dirt road finally gave way to bitumen.





The boys arrived in Cobar, and put 45.8L into a 47L fuel tank, plus refilled the jerry cans!!  Talk about a close call!!


Damian and Adam having a caffeinated beverage, while Damian copied off the dashcam footage of the floodway crossing...  (the dashcam records continuously, and overwrites files after around 8 hours of footage is taken)



Adam having a quick nap...


Hopefully not a sign of things to come...









Leaving Gilgandra, the rain started... and it got heavy!!  It didn't ease up until after the boys had crossed back into Queensland.



At the BP Goondiwindi...


And home safe and sound.


The 1300km drive home turned into just over 1500km with the unexpected detour to Cobar!!  The floodway crossing did make for an interesting dashcam video though.

Thanks to all the people who followed the blog this year - hopefully you had a small insight into the fun, the trials and tribulations and the good work done by all on esCarpade!

Stay tuned for an announcement on what is happening in 2017...  (Damian doesn't know yet!)

2 comments:

  1. Ahhh...Cobar & Nyngan!
    Been through there many a time, on fumes from Broken Hill.
    Remind me not to tag you on any 'if it's flooded, forget it' posts though :-D
    Glad you made it safe, cheers!

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    1. Yes... there's a difference between water over the road and a flooded road, however that was less than desirable!! You'll note that we did stop at the actual flooded road and seek an alternate route...

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