A Jimny in jarrah country
Join Phil Bianchi and his mate Nawelly on a four-wheel-drive adventure through Western Australia’s jarrah forests in a Suzuki Jimny, as they collect native plant seeds for revegetation.
I recently had the pleasure of travelling with my good friend and schoolmate Nawelly. Both of us went to Collie Senior High School in 1970-71. He is a licensed collector of native plant seeds, which are used for revegetating mining areas. Nawelly has some 20 years’ experience in seed collecting and native forest revegetation. I wrote about him and his seed-collecting exploits in the Spring 2016 Western 4W Driver Magazine.
Nawelly had recently taken delivery of a two-door Suzuki Jimny and wanted to show it off to me by putting it through its paces. He also wanted to cheer me up because I was having a battle, for the fourth time, with prostate cancer. I’ve since beaten it again.
My initial response when he suggested the trip was, ‘Where the hell was he going to fit the Thermos flask?’ My next thought was how a gorilla-sized bloke like me was going to jam myself into a Jimny? Despite my initial fears, I said, ‘Let’s go.
I was pleasantly surprised that after being a passenger in the Jimny for three days, I found it roomy width-wise and had good legroom. The Jimny, again, surprised me with the power from its 1.5-litre petrol engine, and it had a real high and low range 5-speed gearbox. One feature he likes is the Brake Limited Slip Diff System; it kicks in when a loss of wheel traction is detected. It adjusts torque to the wheel with grip if the other wheel on the same axle is spinning. In addition, the system has an extra-power mode, which kicks in below 30 km/h in low-range mode to provide the best possible traction. Now that would be a great system to have on my 100 series, although my front and rear diff locks do a great job. In addition to the Brake LSD, the Jimny features Hill Hold Control and Hill Descent Control. Hill Hold Control prevents the vehicle from rolling backwards when taking off while driving on an incline. Hill Descent Control maintains a descent speed of 10 km/h in 4WD high range and 5 km/h in 4WD low range, all without having to touch the brake pedal.
Commence mission
Rather than collecting seeds, this was a reconnaissance trip to investigate areas which had an abundant supply of certain plants from which he could collect seeds when the plants and seeds matured. For instance, some areas that had been burned out by bushfire would not have sufficient plants to make it viable for seed collecting when mature. So he would avoid those areas.
Nawelly has most of the tracks through the jarrah forests, from Jarrahdale to Collie, locked into memory; he has travelled them so many times. We stayed two nights in our old hometown of Collie.
The narrower width and lightness of the Jimny, coupled with its power, an approach angle of 37° and departure angle of 49°, and quality tyres, made light work of the steep, rocky, washed-out, twisty and muddy tracks.
The Jimny’s tight turning circle, shorter length and excellent approach and departure angles were a vast improvement for Nawelly’s needs over his previous vehicle, an elderly diesel engine Hilux ute.
This isn’t a touring vehicle; Nawelly has set it up as his work vehicle. You won’t find any fridges, induction stoves, shower water heaters and fluffy dice here; it’s all about finding and collecting seeds. After-market extras include an ARB bull bar, towbar, canvas seat covers, and a centre console for storage; it also acts as an armrest. Up top is a roof rack with a mesh basket and a canvas luggage bag. On one side of the rack is a large PVC pipe carrying his pole saw, which extends to 7.2 metres. He also carries a hi-lift jack, recovery straps and recovery boards, an air compressor, a portable battery jump starter, a ladder and the relevant tools and storage containers related to his seed-collecting work.
Despite his excellent memory for tracks, he uses Google Earth and maps on his smartphone to assist in navigation and to record coordinates of significant features discovered by him, including giant black butts and king jarrah trees.
His Jimny is dark green in colour and blends in with the vegetation, making it difficult to spot at times. That’s a good idea in some ways because he doesn’t want his vehicle broken into or to be interrupted while seed collecting with questions from sticky beaks and anti-mining folk, such as “You can’t do that,” “What are you doing?” etc. While he is licensed to collect seeds, these intrusions cause disruption, and some people doubt he is telling the truth. Maybe he’s been watching too many movies like Wolf Creek, but when you’re on your own in the bush, it pays to be careful.
Thankfully he has good eyesight and bush sense to relocate the vehicle when he wanders off from it, looking for promising trees from which to collect seed. Should he lose sight of the vehicle and not be able to find it, because the dark green colour blends in with the vegetation, he would be in deep poo.
I hadn’t been in Jarrah bush country for some 20 years. I was surprised to see, in the areas in which we travelled, the lushness and quality of the bush. It was fabulous to be in such a majestic forest, on our own, mid-week. No motorbikes, vehicles, or people, just us. There hadn’t been any logging in the area for years, and the bush has recovered very well from these past logging periods.
Some of the jarrah and blackbutt patches of forest that he had rediscovered over the years and showed me were magnificent. One patch, in particular, near Harvey was spectacular with very tall blackbutt trees, making for a delightful walk. With some of these specimens reaching the height of 45 metres. Our fathers, both timber fallers from the old days, would have marvelled at these forgotten pockets of tall trees. A walk through these patches of forest invigorates, and the quietness of the forest allows you to feel at one with the bush.
While seed collecting, he keeps an eye out for king jarrah trees and giant blackbutts and uses a hypsometer to measure the height of them. While he enthusiastically looks for tall trees, he isn’t as avid as some, who travel across Australia to tick off their list of the tallest trees.
This adventure can be found in the 127th edition of Western 4W Driver at issuu.com
