A Wonderful Trip

Last weekend we made a trip to Gunung Bunder. There were 8 cars altogether, mine (CJ-7), Gita Sapta Adi (CJ-7), Ganet (CJ-3B), Darren Alderson (CJ-7), Yuri Kusweri (Suzuki Vitara), Indra Riana (Suzuki SJ-410), Erce and Abduh (both Suzuki Vitara).

We left Jakarta on Friday 25th August midnight, in two groups. One group (mine) starts from Pondok Cabe gas station, taking the Parung route, and the other group led by Indra Riana which took the Jagorawi toll road. Indra's caravan was already arrived at Gunung Bunder when my caravan arrived at around 2am on Saturday 26th of August.

We have decided to start hitting the trail that early morning, so after a short break and preparation at around 3.30am we head to the trail entrance. Ganet led the way with our local course masters Imang and Sa'id. After Ganet lined up the Suzukis, then Gita's CJ-7, Darren's, and my car as the tail, also acting as sweeper.

The Entrance

The entrance is what we called the Ace Point, a short climb of around 45 degrees inclination with slippery soil and some rocks on the way. It is only around 100 meters long altogether, with the hardest part is the last 50 meters where the ruts are quite tricky and ended by a small river. Ganet's and the Suzuki's were winched up since they were using smaller tyres, while Gita's and mine could pass the challenge with less difficulty for we were using larger diameter tyres. On the climb, Gita's front right tyre went flat due to too low pressure. So we try to fix the problem for almost an hour, using hi-lift jack and air compressor.

The air temperature was very cold at around 23 degrees Celcius, plus a very strong wind, really chilling up to the bone. That 100-meter entrance took us around 3 hours to finish, could you imagine that? Really challenging and fun. After everybody passed that first obstacle, we headed to the first camp site at around 7am on Saturday, a flat field of pine trees where we stop for resting. Everybody fell asleep instantly because we haven't had enough rest that night.

At around 9am, Gita waken up everybody to have breakfast. Yes, that is the good thing about 4-wheeling on Gunung Bunder, we could order for breakfast, lunch or dinner prior to entering the trail to the local tavern. They will send the food to any point on the trail. We had white rice, fried chicken, soya cake and tofu for breakfast... mmm... yummy...

Country Road

After breakfast, at around 10am we start moving for the country road, a 3-kilometer jungle trail. The trail is really challenging with tricky ruts and slopes we have to overcome. It was really slippery at some parts, where your car would slide just anywhere out of control if you are not careful enough. Fortunately what we have along the route was only fun, and fun and fun!

At the point we so called 'Point of No Return', there were 3 lanes, the left, center and right lane. The level of difficulties are heavy, moderate and lighter on the right (still difficult though). So everybody started taking the right lane, which required serious winching and controlling the traction at the same time. I was, however, curious and attempted to try the far most left lane, which looks easy although it's not. Well, the temptation grew so big and I took that left lane. Smooth ride in the beginning until my front right tyre make a successful climb over a root, and after that the car stucked, bellying on the root until it could not move at all. I ask Dany, my co-driver to arrange a recovery strategy, because winching alone is not a solution. The car's transfer case cut into the big root almost half, the front tyre stuck in thick mud, while the rear tyres did not have enough contact to the ground for a good traction. Firstly we tried a single line pull to a tree in front of us, it didn't work at all. So, I told Dany to go on double-line pull using the snatch block. The effort provides us an around 5 centimeters progress! What a trouble! It feels still very hard for the winch. So, we try one more effort on a triple-line pull using two snatch blocks, again, not much progress because the transfer case was cutting into the root.

So, Dany came to the idea of lifting the car with a hi-lift jack. At first we were arguing where to jack the car, near the root (at the right side), or at the back. We then tried jacking the car on the right, but it didn't work as planned because the space was too tight to work with the jack. So, we tried lifting the car's rear. Jacking and winching at the same time and, it works! The car started to move bit by bit. We move from one winching point to another to gain best pulling direction and less obstacle. After about a 30-minute fight with this obstacle, my Jeep successfully recovered and a very deep satisfaction was all around my body. What a challenge! The rest of the group was watching the recovery effort while giving some help. A real off-road brotherhood there is.

At the final of the Point of No Return, we found Darren was quite upset that his winch was broken while trying to get out of the right lane. The bar that holds the drum was broken in pieces because the wire rope was bulging at one side and no one realized that. Poor Darren, he also got a leak in the radiator. Fortunately I brought some wire and radiator stop leak so we could fixed the troubles. The winch didn't really fixed, only a very temporary fixing because to fix it would require moulding a new bracket. We tied the winch with wire as temporary effort.

Exit

It was around half past noon when we finished the Point of No Return challenge. We then head to the rest of the trail until we reach the Charlie intersection at 1.30pm. At this Charlie intersection we could choose 3 routes with 3 levels of difficulty. Because we haven't had lunch and some of the party has had enough adventure, we then decide to head for exit, taking the less difficult trail. We found a broken pine tree with quite a large diameter. Ganet with his automatic CJ-3B managed to go over the trunk without much trouble. Our friends with their Suzukis decided to move the trunk from the path since their cars weren't using runner guards. So they move the trunk out of the way using winch, before we continue to head for the exit. Near the exit, there was another small challenge, a slippery downslope with tight trees formation which required us to carefully manouvre.

At 2.30 pm the whole party has made the exit and we took our rest and lunch at the base camp. It was really an adventure, everybody satisfied I hope. For me, I am very very satisfied... really a nice trip.