Swan Gully Trip Report, April 2026

With an early start at home, we met up with 7 cars at Nerang fair for the drive out to Swan Gully 4WD park.  Mark was eager to get us going, so we left at 7am sharp to start the 1hr drive.  With 5 Nissan Patrols in the group, we knew we were up for a great day!!

As we got closer to the park, we picked up an 8^th car with Simon in the Challenger.  With the group now complete, we headed into the park to air down, sign in & pay our park entry fees.

After a quick brief from Mark (and a few comments that it was bound to be great day with all the Nissans around), we formed up and headed out to the playground for some fun in the ruts & playing on the flex ramp.

Prado in Playground

When the left the playground area and headed out for the tracks.  These were going to be a mix of easy & medium, with a few bonus lines thrown in for those with the penchant to play.

We followed the fence line track (without getting lost this time) and made our way around the edge of the park.  A few steep climbs later we found ourselves at a lookout point towards the top of the park. 

Uphill Climb

Fence Line Track

 

After a look around & a group photo, we continued on as we still had quite a way to go to get us back to the sign in area & our lunch spot for the day.

We still had a few uphill sections to contend with as well that made for some interesting times.  I suspect some bodily fluids were left on Seb’s Nissan seat after he had to take a second go at getting around a very tight corner.

About 10min down the track, we decided to split off, with the Nissans tacking a harder section while Mark took Ady in the Mahindra & Simon in the Challenger in a different direction. 

After his encounter with a 2-point turn, Seb decided to show up the “old Man” and had a great drive of the harder section getting up it with ease.

Harder Section

We all eventually met back up at the top of the fence line track, made a very tight U-Turn via the turn around area & headed down the hill into the playground area again.  The old adage of “what goes up, must come down” was true for us as well.  After all the climbing, it was time to hit the downhill sections. These were pretty steep too, but everyone negotiated them with relative ease.  Long sections of low range, first gear was the order of the day in this area.

On the way down, 2 of the Nissans decided to take a harder section while the rest us made a leisurely descent into the playground, then we were all off to the check-in area for lunch.

This brought us to the end of the day with all but 2 members opting to head home.  The other two decided to stay & play in the playground for a little bit longer.

Thank you to everyone who made it today.  It was a great day &a big Thank You to Mark for leading the trip.