It?s taken about five months, but at last a fine, sunny Sunday coincided with our monthly Breakfast Club gathering – as well as the Christmas Run to Picnic Point (Longwarry North) which followed immediately afterwards.
Unfortunately, your correspondent was so preoccupied with making signs, organising keys to unlock the gates at Picnic Point, finding something to take for lunch, fitting the largest possible folding chair into the Fiat Spider, charging batteries, fuelling up and setting tyre pressures, that the trusty camera was left at home! The result is a much smaller gallery of mobile phone photos that doesn?t really do justice to the variety and numbers of cars on display. There were over seventy special vehicles gracing the Woolies? carpark this month, ranging from Hot Rods to classic and modern sports cars.
It was good to see Steve Trapnell?s yellow Porsche 911S which has been forlornly sitting in his shed for many months just waiting for the right opportunity to turn a wheel. It was also hard to miss Trevor Batt?s Kermit Green Mk.1 Escort making its debut appearance. Trevor has been ironing the bugs out of this recent acquisition that?s powered by a warm 2-litre Pinto engine. Ross McConnell surprised us at the Geelong Revival with his Renmax sports car racer, but he?s also found himself a FPV Falcon GT which he brought along this month ? talk about chalk and cheese! Another debut appearance this month was that of Grant Buck?s black Nissan 350Z, one of I think, three of this particular model in the club now.
A 1920?s Fiat 501 Tourer belonging to Brodie Bishop teamed up with a similar vintage Model T Ford and Mark McKibbin?s Austin 7 Special to represent the early days of motoring whilst a stunning AMG Mercedes GTC Coupe illustrated the current thinking in supercar design and performance.
Come 10am, the select group of members who felt like a drive through the hills to Picnic Point, departed Warragul and headed off in the opposite direction to that of our final destination. The 53-kilometre route took us out through Buln Buln East, along the Mizpah Settlement and McDougal Roads to Neerim South before turning west to Jindivick, then south to Labertouche and eventually Longwarry North. It was a pretty drive through lush, hilly farmland, it?s just a shame that some of the roads are in a pretty poor state ? and have been for a number of years. Glenn and Pam Campbell met us in Jindivick in their BMW M3, but followed on later after enjoying the caf??s scones with jam and cream. Ray Youlden, having been entrusted with the Shire?s key which opens the gates to the large grassed and treed area at Picnic Point, took a direct route to the park and had found the most suitable area for our picnic. Over 30 cars and 50 people joined us there for lunch and stayed on well into the afternoon.
From all accounts, it seems like everybody had a terrific day, but after two weeks of cold, blustery westerly winds and below-average temperatures, it was nice to just spend a day outside and if you had a roofless sports car, it was even better. Thank you to all who participated.
First 4 photos by Andrew Wilson.
