OKA Rally, Hughes Creek – 13th – 15th October 2006

Written by Rowena Paterson

We had 8 OKAs come together for a great weekend at Hughes Creek in the Strathbogie Ranges, north of Melbourne.

I was first to arrive on Friday followed by: Ian Jones & niece Erin, Paul Nott, Darren Visser & Janine Ridley & family and Greg & Maree Boyle & family.

Our Saturday arrivals were: Walter & Elly Hes, Chris & Elanie Deed & family & Peter Davis & Serena Fraser with son Cameron.

Chris & Elanie are only new members and it was good to see their Army green duel cab OKA with Trayon camper on the tray. A great setup, I liked their camper.

On Friday night, while we were still waiting on the Vissers & Boyles, Paul said “can you hear that?� You could hear an OKA coming through the hills, the Rockwell transfer case and Perkins motor was a dead giveway. We listened as the noise came closer to our camp, then stopped. Then we heard the OKA going the other way. We assumed it was the Visser OKA but couldn’t radio them. “That’s not good� we thought, they must have just missed our camp and turned back. Shortly after we could hear another OKA coming though the hills, it was a similar sound but a little bit quieter. That must be the Boyle OKA? It came closer then the sound also disappeared. I must admit it wasn’t an easy camping spot to find in the dark. Greg had a UHF so we were able to radio them. Apparently they ended up at a farm house, a lady appeared with a torch and said “are you looking for those OKA thingy’s? they have been coming and going all day, go back the other way and you will find them�.

In the meantime we had the cops doing the rounds of the camp, checking to make sure we didn’t have a campfire due to a total fire ban. Paul approached the cops and asked them to keep an eye out for any lost OKAs.

The cops found the Vissers shortly later driving up the road, pulled them up with a flash of their lights and sent them into the right direction. The Boyle family still hadn’t turned up, so we again called them up on the radio. The response was “we are on our way, just extracting a huntsman spider from the OKA�. So by about 10.30pm we finally had the Visser & Boyle family join us.

The kids had a great time playing in the creek and pushing around Luke Visser on his little tractor during the weekend. Even Paul joined in on the fun with the kids, at one stage they had Luke floating down the creek on his tractor.

Saturday night we stoked up the fire and socialised for a number of hours on all types of topics, but I had to admit there was also quite abit of OKA talk in there.

The Visser family were ready to go early on Sunday morning. After seeing Darren walk up a granite rock face nearby our camp, I knew he was about to drive up and over it.

So we all watched as the Vissers drove towards and up onto the rock face. The OKA was halfway up the rock face, when we heard a loud bang and crunch, the OKA came back down and wasn’t going anywhere. Paul guessed it correctly, the rear axle was broken. After the broken axle was removed, the hole was sealed and the Vissers drove off using the front diff/drive shaft. Shortly after Paul attempted the same rock face in his OKA, driving very slowly letting the OKA crawl up and over, not a problem. He did it so easily.

Another great weekend.