This year we attended the annual Victorian Gathering which is organised on the 4x4earth website and located at O’Toole’s Flat campground in Thomson State Forest. The gathering is largely a social event, however, if you look beyond the gathering there…
What happens when you let a forum full of avid four-wheel drivers loose in the High Country? A full-on adventure, that’s what! Every year for the last eight years a group of Victorians from the website 4x4earth.com have organised…
To say I am a dedicated four-wheel driver would have to be an understatement. There are not too many off-road tracks in this country that I haven’t explored – and with 20 Simpson Desert crossings under my belt, the thought…
I watched from a sand dune as my children played below – the beach quiet and empty, the ocean clear and calm. The bright morning sunlight glowed in their shiny hair. They dug holes, built walls and were peacefully…
Two-stroke fuel wafted across the red sand dunes as the wind blew fumes back into the cabin of the LJ50 Suzuki, giving its occupants an oily pungent smell that stuck to their clothing and any exposed skin. The little Suzi…
Before Sundown became a National Park, it was a collection of leaseholds for sheep grazing. On their days off, the locals used to take 10 hours on a tractor towing a trailer to travel the 20km in to…
When most four wheel drivers think of high mountains and crystal clear streams they immediately imagine the Victorian High Country. That’s fair enough, but it’s a long way away for anyone who doesn’t live in Victoria. What if there was…
The sunrise was stunning, with the clouds lit up in gorgeous reds, pinks and golds. As the group stood around in awe of Mother Nature, the sad fact dawned on the Aussie Outback Solar Challenge organisers that this would be…
We explore the often overlooked tracks, campsites and huts of the Victorian High Country… oh yeah, in the snow! You know those big trips you always plan on doing with your mates, but something always seems to get in the…
The sun was starting to dip below the horizon ahead of us, the softening light doing magical things with the reds, blues and greens that surrounded us. We were travelling along the Anne Beadell Highway – a rough and snaking…
A Perentie In The Australian Alps About halfway through my four-wheel drive adventure through the Australian Alps, it struck me that I wasn’t really driving the Perentie I was in. Rather I was tractor wrestling, as a veteran who used…
Adventurous or Crazy? No matter which way you look at it, a trip across the Simpson Desert is one of those 4X4 adventures which culminates in a multitude of different opinions and emotions. Whether it’s excitement or trepidation or quite…
If you look back throughout the history of four-wheel drive vehicles, there’s one that really stands out as the beginning of it all — the iconic World War II jeep. Just over 600,000 of them were made to fight the…
Andrew is a music connoisseur and right now he is in the mood for something more serious and solemn. He pushes a CD of French-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma into the CD player in his 4X4: Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites fill…
The north-west of Victoria is – as far as tourism goes – no-man’s land. The world for most travellers ends at one of the state’s biggest icons, the Grampians. North of its sandstone mountains lies a world only visited by…
