Weekly Wrap - so much to tell you - end of April - Part 1, heading west.

Welcome to last week's, and this week's weekly summary of the goings on at the Australian Offroad Academy.

A very big fortnight. So big that we are going to need to split it up into a few updates.

Go West

Mike and Dave packed up the Mazda and SxS and Quad and headed off for a quick trip to Barcaldine. Stopping on the way to complete accredited Side x Side training with a team of researchers from Central Qld University to are doing fauna monitoring on Curtis Island with Qld National Parks.

The SxS is a great tool for carrying team and payload into sensitive locations.

What a tough place to work. As much as the landscape on the Western Side of Curtis Island has been changed forever, there is still a whole lot of wilderness over there, and a few offroading challenges.
These teams have transitioned from 4x4 to SxS as the lighter weight and reduced footprint allows them to get their equipment and personnel into sensitive environments with out causing the impact that a full size 4x4 can.

Lightweight and Manouvreable

One on one attention during training

Our CFMoto SxS even has bucket seats

Our stop in Rockhampton was all too short and we were back in the Mazda heading west towards Barcaldine.
We were chasing the sunset from Blackwater.

 After an early start from the pitcuresque town of Alpha we arrived in Barcaldine ready to begin.

We and the team enjoyed some Outback hospitality at the Mandy's Cafe in the Main Street of Barcaldine before heading out for a day on the buggies in the QLD Outback.

We use our quad bike as our 'chase' vehicle during SxS courses, this enables us to stay close to our clients but maintain the same low environmental footprint as them.

SxS courses include high speed skills and low speed maneuvering.

Our CFMoto U8 is equipped with a fully compliant utility bar from Britax and some seriously clever LED Spotties from X-Ray- we aren't afraid of the dark in this buggy.

The CFMoto X6 LWB is a whole lot of bike.

Yeah, we go through a few witches hats.

With our time in Barcladine at an end, we stopped and made a few promotional visits around town, and hit the road again.
Check out this sunrise as we were getting ready for another day on the road.

For those interested in such things, we had a fuel mileage of 18.1 l/100kms on the way out to Barcaldine and 20.5 l/100kms on the way back into a pretty consistent headwind.

Once back on the road it was a straightforward run back to the Fraser Coast to prepare for a full weekend of more courses at Landcruiser Mountain Park and Noosa North Shore...