Cliff Hanger

CLIFFY AIN’T FOR THE FAINT- HEARTED.

- Norm Needham

TAKE A half-dozen off-road buggies (think: rock crawlers and Ultra 4s) add an equal number of Touring Class 4WDs and combine them with 30-odd Challenge Class winch trucks. The mix varies from recognizable profiles of the 4WDs we see traveling day-to-day, to something that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Mad Max.

Assemble these rigs on a rough and desolate 47,000-acre property in the boondocks somewhere north-west of Cobar, NSW, and ask them to negotiate some near impossible terrain as fast as they possibly can … for a week!

Sounds like fun? Or maybe more like hard yakka?

The recipe worked and, amid the bleakness and dust of the worst drought in recent memory, competitors raced and sweated through 20 special stages, day and night, vying for glory. The stages have names like Run for the Hills, Rock Garden, Lost, and Where Goats Dare, hinting at the varied terrain.

Contrary to common beliefs it ain’t flat north-west of Cobar, with rough, rocky ridges separating red soil valleys and soft, sandy creek beds. Plus, there are rocks the size of cars, and the sand here is often more treacherous than that of coastal beaches.