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Your guide to some of the best off-roading tracks
The sun’s getting real low there, big guy. Wait, maybe I’m mixing my pop culture icons, but the sentiment is correct; Mater Cars for Cancer lottery No. 112 is closing soon…and closing fast.
So maybe I’ve mixed my archaeologist Indys with my hulking Avengers, but there’s one icon that’s impossible to confuse; the Toyota 79-series LandCruiser ain’t no Jeep, and it’ll take the fight to the J-dog every time and come up smelling of beige-coloured roses.
If you’re the lucky winner of this Rambler Vehicles Australia-improved, fully off-road equipped 79-series LandCruiser dual cab, then you’ll need some inspiration; where to go? Well, let me help you with that, but first you’ll need to ensure you’ve got a ticket.
While Mater Cars for Cancer is a Queensland-based entity, prize winners can hail from anywhere across this fair nation, so with that in mind, winners of all walks can be grinners of all kinds, and such winning, grinning people will want to test out their new 79-series. Those in the home zone are spoiled for choice, but TrulyAus and several others can’t go past K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island).
At 120km in length and nearly 25km wide, K’gari is the world’s largest sand bar, and is on the World Heritage List for its natural values. The media may have skewed our vision of K’gari a bit, as it rarely depicts any other than sand, but the island is so much more than that.
Your 79-series will need to ride a barge to get there, but once you’re on K’gari, the site offers trails amongst rainforests of native palms and lakes lined with paperbark gum trees. There’s just a couple of important rules on K’gari; don’t feed the dingos and drop those pressures down to around 16psi.
Of course, if you’re from the bigger smokes down south, you may want to check out somewhere closer. One Adventure rates Watagans National Park, just over an hour from Sydney and chocked full of tracks to explore. Being the natural habitat of the land mullet means dads like me can get their ultra-dad on by saying things like, “Don’t just sit there like a stunned mullet,” to their kids while jeering pointedly towards large dark lizards minding their own business. I know I would.
For the Vics, bloggers Aaron and Sarah Schubert recommend the Jamieson Track, just off the Great Ocean Road around 20 minutes out of Lorne. Although only short, the Jamieson Track will lead you to so many options, you’ll hulk out and perhaps need a lie down. Lucky there’s that iKamper Skycamp 3.0 hard shell rooftop tent fitted to the LandCruiser!
I’m based in SA and I do get a bit uninspired by the fact that we’re surrounded by desert, but sometimes you’ve just got to hit that head on. Much of the Eyre Peninsula’s Coffin Bay National Park is 4WD-only, and Environment SA suggests it’s best taken carefully and in an unhurried fashion, arguing that there’s always an interesting view. I love a view, but I’m a sucker for Coffin Bay oysters even more, so after a hard day’s trekking, if you can me up a dozen or so around a plate, they’d be my dial of destiny.
Further afield and over in the most remote city on Earth, Perthites have the run of their fantastic state, but if winning the 79 series is their first entry into four-wheel-drivedom, they’ll need to start somewhere. The Summerstar Tourist Parks blog believes they’ve got the goods in the Lake Navarino Holiday Park, a combination of caravan park and off-road adventure playground, set amongst the grounds of the Waroona Dam.
Apparently, there’s something for everyone from the off-road novice to the all-green, beige-shirt-wearing, monster-truck-wielding super-archaeologist, so it’s something that I, for one, would be keen to check out. Although it does recommend keeping it to the summer months so that you don’t get bogged. Sounds like a challenge, to me.
You may notice I’ve missed out the Tasweigians, Canberrans and Territorians; so many tracks there, you don’t need my help! While there’s only one prize, there’s certainly something for everyone within that prize; it is what you make it, and whatever the case, $142,447 worth of cashable gold bullion on top will make it even better.
The last 17 lotteries have sold out fast, so I recommend you get in on this one sooner rather than later; old icons pf the 80s have been around for a long time, but they won’t be around forever.
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