A quick day trip to give the car a test run to see how it handles basic obstacles / sand. We headed over the Settlement Point Ferry ($5.00) and stopped to drop the tyre pressures. Started at 20psi to see how it went.
The beach pass is $68 per year and covers the Port Macquarie / Hastings, Kempsey and Nambucca LGAs. Unfortunately it’s another $100 per year for the Mid Coast LGA…..
The initial run wasn’t too bad in second gear at around 35-40km/h. Third gear tended to struggle a tad more, so I ended up stopping and dropping down to 17psi. Made a good difference.
We pulled up at Queens Head and climbed up the track to enjoy the views. A few surfers were out enjoying the good weather.
We climbed back down and headed off the beach onto Point Plomer Rd. The cafe was closed so we basically wandered on to Crescent Head to have a late feed.
I have been spoilt for years having an ARB air compressor permanently mounted in my old Defender, so it was a bit of a change going back to a portable one. We decided a while ago to try the XTM brand (BCF) a go but this was the first real time we’ve used it in anger (the other trips we’ve been lucky to have a service station near by).
Surprisingly it was bloody good and put 20psi into each tyre fairly quickly – well it actually put more in because I didn’t keep up!!! Time will tell but thus far it is doing the job. Anyway we had a good feed of seafood from Chanchitas before wandering around.
A fairly straight forward run on the way home via Maria River Drive. Noticed that once the tyre pressures were back up (35psi) it bounced a lot more around the gravel road, despite being locked into high range 4WD. The corrugations were bad enough to loosen the securing nut on the light bar, so I’ll add that to my small jobs to complete 🙂
We caught the Hibbard Ferry back (also $5.00) and called it a day after grabbing a cooked chook for dinner. All up a nice quick easy day trip to just get away.