One of the best things about camping at Robe is that there are a lot of beaches that you can swim, surf and sail on. One particularly fine day, the gang thought it would be a great idea to go to back beach for a surf. So, we loaded up a couple of cars and the bosses 4WD and headed out on the back roads to the beach. As we approached., the dirt track became boggy and sandy, so we loaded up the 4WD with the gear. 4WD filled to the roof with gear and all the people walking along the track.
When we arrived at the beach we parked the 4WD up the top of the beach. Set ourselves up and a good time was had by all. Once we decided to call it quits and head home, that’s when this story started to get a heck of a lot more interesting. As I attempted to drive off the beach (in 4WD), the car became more and more bogged. We tried everything, including scaping out sand, using branches for grip, a bit of muscle power- all to no avail. Then we had a brain wave of driving down the beach towards the damper, firmer sand (below the high tide line). The plan being that we could get a run up towards the exit road. This also ended up as an epic failure. Yes we made it down below the high tide line, no we didn’t make it back up. We were now bogged only 5m from the shore line with a fast approaching rising tide.
What were we to do?!?!
At this point, we were all out of ideas so one of the team headed off on foot to run the 5k back to town for assistance. This left the rest of us to continue our meagre and pathetic attempts to de-bog the 4WD and to watch the ever approaching tide.
Finally, with less than a meter remaining of dry sand, our friend arrived back in a souped up, heavy duty, beach bashing 4WD with a substantial tow rope. With a snort and a chuckle he helped us up and in short order had us off the beach and back on the dirt track. $200 later we had dust stinging our eyes and could hear the parting remark of “you city slickers will never learn”. Limped back to camp, tail between our legs, drowned our sorrows with a lighter wallet by $200. Stay tuned, yep it got worse, for Part III
