Not sure I’d paint Dargo as only 4WD tracks to get there. Is has a sealed road in. I’d say Woods Point with a good unsealed (but 2WD accessible) road in as technically more isolated.
Thank you for the amazing comment. We have been around, but unfortunately life (bills, kids, work) has gotten in the way a little. Any trips we have done recently we didn't feel were worthy of an upload. We hope to have something new out soonish.
Should have kept the 80 series too I reckon. They're a very capable rig also :-). A winch would be a good option as well if you keep on four wheel driving
Have you driven Brisbane Ranges national Park? It’s considerably, smaller than Wombat / Lerderderg but very nice nonetheless great camping , hiking and off road tracks too !
The Brisbane Ranges was one of our first videos. We probably didn't do it justice, but are still new to all this and learning so hopefully go back and improve on the video
I was thinking about doing this as my first proper 4wd track as you said any 4wd could do this. Is the easy route still entertaining or should I try some of the more difficult options?
Under the conditions that we went, you shouldn't have too much difficulty if you choose the easier paths. It can be quite rocky in places so tyres and tyre pressure may be a factor. It can snow up there and a wet track might add a degree of difficulty. Good luck, let us know how you went :)
Unique and tranquil? You must have visited when there weren’t idiots out running rampart with 4x4’s and shotguns chasing deer! It’s the crappiest drive, the roads are disgraceful, and no matter how you choose to try to portray the place, you’d have to be a frigging hermit to want to live there. It’s freezing in winter, the roads are treacherous, and if you reckon this is a place to be “inspired” to do anything other than neck yourself, you’re insane!
Thanks for the like 😊 There are a heap tracks off the main track (leading to Tallarook, north of Mt Disappointment). These are some of the tracks we saw but didn't have time to explore so we can not comment on the difficulty of them - let us know what you think of them, if you end up on any of them Wild Dog Track Sailor Jack Track Stoney Creek Rd Nylanders Spur TK Quarry RD and few tracks off it The Bump Clarkes Tk We tend to drive around and randomly choose tracks to see where they lead. Some of these tracks had a very steep descent / ascent (although they might have been closer to Tallarook). We are sure that with a bit of exploration you wont have trouble finding them
Hi thanks for the sub and comment (and sorry about the delay in reply). the size is 265/70/r17, basically the largest we could go without modifications. We hope that helps
Thanks for your reply. Sorry about the sound quality, we are constantly trying to get better with the equipment we have... and hopefully one day be able to upgrade it. This was an early video so let us know if you noticed a difference on the newer ones (definitely not going to say they are 100%, but we are hoping that there is an improvement).
Went down there a month or so ago, a lot has changed since then. Due to the rain it was a lot more washed out and a little more challenging. Saying that we still made it without needing to recover. Good luck 😊
I enjoyed the efficiency of your edit on this :) you had a lot of gear with you, pretty well prepared i think. No winch and less travel puts me further back into the "any 4wd" category than your current vehicle. It's always those rut slides I'm watchful of, as a board would be my only way out. It's a good mindset to have to always be prepared to turn around, and leave enough time to basically do the track twice. I've got to the end of one and found a large tree.. so it's possible to walk to the exit but not be able to get the car there. Great job completing this one.
There are still lots of places you can go without a 4WD, but it is a lot easier to take the path less travelled with one! We have never been a fan of scheduled & structured tours, we prefer to wonder whenever we get a chance. Thank you for the kind words 😊
All our trips seem to be last minute, we have had our car packed for the last month, however needed to cancel many times due to various reasons. We will keep you in mind when planning as it is comforting knowing there is another vehicle there... just in case. The Prado is a very capable car, we looked at that before the Fortuner, but it was a little out of our price range
@@any4wd yeah my brother is the only person I know with a 4wd and we never seem to get the same free time to get together and throw some mud around, so definitely keep me in mind. Keen as to meet new people and new adventures
When l was a kid we used to go to Dargo annually, when my Dad and a couple of mates would go to a friends property to shoot kangaroos. Its certainly changed there in the last 40- 50 years!
It's always amazing to hear how places have changed over the years. Dargo doesn't look like it would have changed a lot, just shows how much we know 🤔😀
@@any4wd l remember staying at a caravan park, there was a milk bar down the road and the old pub on the corner (l think it burnt down years ago) That was about it for Town haha I once walked to the milk bar and had to sit on a fence while a bunch of cows was herded up the road 😄
Depends where you are comparing it to... For us we were looking for the next nearest town in Victoria. If you were to compare it to other places in Australia it would look like it was next door, but in Victoria, it is the town furthest away from any other
We were talking about going to Walhalla in the near future! A few people have mentioned it and it does sound like a great spot to explore. Thanks for the comment
Some would argue that using very unique is a crime against language. However, as Professor Pinker has pointed out in his writing about rules of language, this isn't the correct way to approach the word unique and it's uses and meanings because grammar is not logical. Professor Pinker points out: "The concept "unique" is meaningful only after you specify which qualities are of interest to you. Calling something "quite unique" or "very unique" implies that the item differs from the others in an unusual number of qualities, that it differs from them to an unusual degree, or both." Source "Writing tips from the accuracymatters website" So I guess there is that. There are probably bigger issues we both could be tackling right now to be honest.
You want isolated? Go to Bullumwaal, just outside of Bairnsdale. No tv reception, no mobile reception, a winding road that snakes up and down mountainside. A total "blink and you'll miss it" gem. There's nothing there, but it's a nice relaxing place to get away from all the distractions of the world.
Eldorado. Go and find if anyone can still take you to Kelly’s caves along the Reedy creek road. There are two of them. On a clear day they are magnificent. A group of us who lived in Eldorado (13 car loads) did the hike, it was amazing. From memory the guys name is Andy Hill but he would be a fair age by now. We did this in 1998. Check it out but be prepared for a hike!
We have now put this on our list. Is it possible to find the caves without a guide (we will try and find someone who knows the area, but just in case we can't)? We are always up for a bit of a hike so that part doesn't scare us 😉 Thanks for the suggestion
We were told it was hard, and we even heard some stories when we were down there of people that didn't make it. It is something that we would love to do one day, but maybe with a few other people and vehicles... just in case
There is a Walnut Retreat in Dargo that looks amazing, we didn't mention it in our video as we didn't have time to check it out. Hopefully one day we can stay there and experience more from the beautiful area
We are always open to learning something new. A few people have pointed out towns like Woods Point, Bendoc, Walhala & Licola, however on our criteria they missed out as there was another town or towns close by (although the cluster of towns would be very remote and quite hard to get to), so you peaked our curiosity as to where the most remote town in Victoria is?
Got one for you to consider, haven't been there myself - apparently the most isolated roadhouse in Oz. On the Anne Beadel hwy - Ilkurlka in Western Australia, It is on a road, more like a bush track, i have always wanted to travel. From Coober Pedy to Laverton WA. @@any4wd
We love a roadhouse... they all seem to be disappearing making way for fast food chains and the like, it's now on the list, we will let if we make it there, hopefully you get to travel from Coober Pedy to Laverton as that would be an amazing road trip
Brings back fond memories. Dargo, Craigs Hut, Clear Hills, Gafneys Creek ect. A mate and I started hiking all through there 40 years ago. Bumped in to a group of fun 4x4 guys who offered us a beer and a feed. They took us on some amazing 4x4 tracks. We got back to Melbourne on the Sunday and bought our first 4x4s the following week. I bought a 1975 Nissan Patrol soft top. Mate bought an old cruiser wagon. Thanks for the memories.
Laverton WA on the Great Central Road, is a long way from anywhere, is at the end of the bitumen, 360 km NNE of Kalgoorlie and feels isolated. The closest town is Leonora about 125 km away. If you keep going, you get to Ayers Rock about 1100km along the Great Central Road. Approx. 850 km of this road is unsealed. The Laverton mayor Patrick Hill was interviewed on national TV last year cos Morrison govt made an election promise to seal the entire Great Central Road, This will cut 1,000 km off the journey for trucks driving from QLD to Perth which currently is done via the northern coastal roads. But, the Albanese govt cancelled the program. Hence why Laverton mayor was interviewed. There is still gold to be found around Laverton. A prospector I know at Laverton found a six ounce gold nugget in the Laverton area earlier this year. Naturally, he is not saying where he found it. One of the close by gold mines, Sunrise Dam, produces a ton of gold a month (was open cut, now gone underground). Lynas Mt Weld mine south of Laverton is Australia's only rare earth minerals mine (or was, another may have opened). There are real ghost towns in the area from the mining boom days such as Mt Morgan, and Kookynie (20,000 people once lived there, now reduced to six families. Pub is huge and still operating but off the beaten track). Anyone familiar with the Poseidon nickel mine fraud of the late 1960s, this mine is very close to Laverton. This was famous and was naional news at the time. The area is mulga country with eucalypts almost no where to be seen. There are some pockets, but it is mostly mulga.
We are saving up pennies to hopefully one day go see places like Kalgoorlie and Laverton WA(and who knows, maybe even find a little gold for ourselves). A sealed road is nice, but there is something adventurous about an unsealed road (We can already hear people living in areas, with crappy dirt roads yelling at us through the computer) We love a ghost town as they always have a story to be told, and a bit of a glimpse into yesteryear when things seemed simpler, but would have been much tougher without all of todays comforts. We also now need to look up the Poseidon nickel mine fraud as we are also a fan of true crime and it is one that we haven't heard of yet. Thank you for the amazing comment.
I am from Victoria and lived near Laverton for 14 months ten years ago, loved the life style. lived on a cattle station out of town and worked on a local mine. If you visit, the mayor Patrick Hill is very approachable and amiable. Lots of prospectors go to an area close to Laverton called Hawks Nest on the Old Laverton Road which kinda follows the old abandoned rail line (closed 70 years ago). Lots of other places to prospect. Menzies, Leonora, in fact all around Kalgoorlie for hundreds of kilometres. A chap I know, Sam, operates the motel in the town. He was a very active prospector. There are other remains of towns with one south east of Laverton with a still active gold mine - Fish...... is the name of it (though this might be the name of the local gold mine). You can see the old street layouts and the cemetery but the only building left is the collapsed stone walled pub. Some of the graves out there are poignant with young men coming from overseas such as NZ and England only to never to return home and never see their families again, some dying young. Hawks Nest has a well known grave to a young bloke killed by lightning in the 1890s (if memory serves) and he mentions the lightning in the last entry in his diary. If you have a semi licence, you will easily get work. Not much work for MR or HR truckin. Speak to the owner of Desert Sands in Laverton or Breakaway in Leonora (both specialise in road maintenance and construction). Kalgoorlie seems to always have work for semi drivers. Usually paid well cos if they don't, drivers go work on the mines who do pay well - cos FIFO is a crap life style (FIFO - Fly in Fly out. aka 'Fit in or F**k off'😉) I am planning to go back, driving across the Nullarbor next year. From Port Agusta to Norseman is a great drive (1700km) . So little traffic. Cocklebiddy roadhouse does the best steak sandwiches, I always stop there to have one! fuel up at Nundroo SA, the last of the reasonably priced petrol til Norseman. Next roadhouse heading west, the price jumps 30c a litre! (at least last time I went just before Covid). In the Great Victoria Desert, (which includes the WA Goldfields) the local black fella mob are the Wongi who have a joke - If you're a white guy, you're not a Wongi! We call em blackfella and they call us whitefella or whybella and nobody thinks anything of it, not considered racist or a put down. It is a very different lifestyle out there which people either love or loath. I loved it and could have stayed. But family and friends are in Vic. Good Luck if you go, I am sure you will enjoy the journey and the stay. Endless places to pull into the bush and camp all over WA and SA Outback. @@any4wd
It must be a small town if people are on the first name basis with the mayor. We would love to check out the abandoned rail line and old town, it would be a snap shot into Australia's past. The graves sound sad, do you know if it was due to mining that people were dying young, or just a harsh place to live? We do have a semi licence, but due to young(ish) kids, it has sorted of grounded us a little, but we do talk about doing something like that a little later in life. The furthest west one of us has been is Whyalla, but the Nullarbor is a bucket list item for both of us, plus who doesn't love a steak sandwich from a roadhouse. We are looking forward to getting out there one day and experiencing different cultures, and environments. There is still so much of Australia that we haven't seen. Thanks for some amazing suggestions and we took note.
Ha Ha, we love nature but hate the hay fever that comes with it... outer space might be for us... On the next episode of Any 4WD we are going to outer space 🛸🛰🚀 (please note: not in the budget to go to outer space)
Just subscribed. I love channels that are not over produced. Ignore the comments about it not being the most isolated town...honestly, anyone with half a brain would understand you weren't trying to be scientifically accurate. I'll be checking out more content from you guys...keep it coming!
Yes 100% This should go without saying. We have pointed this out in the past, and not all people realise that we will lose access to these wonderful places if they are not treated with the respect they deserve!
I was in the area a few years ago, and did the triplet falls, and it rained of course. The treetop walk was great, didn’t do the zip line but was planning to go soon, but weather has put me off for now. Wind and steep hills not great for my vehicle. Keep up the good work on your channel 👍
We are yet to do the tree top walk, however we did have a go at the zip line. Unfortunately the weather has not been ideal at the moment, but on the bright side the waterfalls will be flowing with force. Thanks for the comment 😊
As you said some crowns ignore the rules and bollards and parks where they shouldnt - others ignore the rules and fly their drone in national parks and post their videos on youtube. At least you actually videoed the no drones sign - well done.
We are forever learning, however we always try and have the correct permits and permissions in place. We will not always get it right, but we will always try, and always treat areas with respect. Thanks for the comment.
