Saturday we headed out to Ruby Gap with some friends from work. "Gaps" around here are usually places where a seasonal river runs between the mountains or in a canyon. Ruby Gap got its name for being the first "ruby rush" site in the Red Centre when a prospector thought he found rubies in the sands of the Hale River. The prospectors later found that they weren't real rubies, but garnets. Thus ended the ruby rush, but gold was soon discovered approximately 40km away in Arltunga.
The kids were excited all week to get out and do some climbing at Ruby Gap. We packed up our lunch and dinner and a huge jug of water and headed out at a quarter to eight in the morning to meet up with friends from work at a nearby park and head out. Our friends were all going camping overnight, but since we haven't gotten our camping gear yet, we decided to make a day trip out of it. We had four 4x4 SUVs and a two-wheel drive "Ute" (which is what they call pickups here) in our caravan. The road out to Ruby Gap is paved for approximately 80km, some of which is a single lane of bitumen with gravel along both sides so that when oncoming traffic is approaching, you can drive half on the pavement and half off! After 80km, it turns to wash-boardy gravel for another 20km until Arltunga. Arltunga is a historic area, so we stopped and looked at an old gaol (jail) and mining equipment. After Arltunga, there is a sign that says "4x4 required beyond this point", and the road becomes a VERY rugged single-lane track with wash-outs, big rocks and steep grades.
After about 1 hour of driving (only 12km out of Arltunga!), we hit a large "dip". Our Land Rover has "air springs" that are basically glorified balloons that hold the rear of rig up off the axle. Well, as you have likely guessed by now, when we hit the dip we heard a very loud "pop", kinda like the sound of a heavy-duty balloon popping. Hmm... I wonder what that could be... I was hoping it was a tire (because we did have a spare), but alas, it was the left rear air shock! So now we are sitting directly on the axle out in the middle of the bush, and the Land Rover has a self-leveling system, so the right side went down as low as it could to try to match the blown shock. VERY luckily, nothing was rubbing so we were able to drive out. It was very slow going, and we were jostled to death until we got back to the pavement!
The guy we bought the LR from had installed the front portion of a lift kit and so had given us actual springs for the rear, but said he preferred the air springs so left them in. He also gave us an old air spring that had a leak, so when we got back home, I replaced the blown air spring with the old one - it only took about 20 minutes (don't I wish we would have brought the old air spring with us!). The air system is able to keep up with the leak in the old spring easily while driving, but after the LR sits for an hour or so it is back down to the axle again. I've ordered a couple of inexpensive parts for installing the actual springs, so I will remove both air springs once we get those parts. I have since read online that serious off-roaders never keep the air springs, but replace them with real springs for obvious reasons. Sometimes that is just how you learn! We did purposefully go with several other people because this was the first time going 4x4'n with the LR, so glad we did that! They were very helpful (thanks Roger!)
So it was an adventure for the books, but God kept us safe. The kids were very disappointed, and pretty much had to just sit in the LR the whole day. We did stop once on the way back and did a bit of treasure hunting in one of the river beds we had to drive through. We plan to go again once our suspension is up to snuff so we can finally conquer Ruby Gap (oh yea, and maybe do some hiking and climbing too)! :-)
Trent
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