Story: Karen Bradshaw
We met in the car park at the back of the Foodworks store in Trafalgar, all looking forward to this much talked-about run.
But there were three cars that were waiting at the train station – no trains where we were going! But we must make allowances for them as they had come up the previous evening from Ballarat (not Ian and me, as we had been travelling around Mt Kosciusko and Mt Hotham the previous week).
We caught up with many friends and made some new ones. After lots of chin-wagging it was time for Alan’s “pep” talk and then it was off for our adventure with a convoy of 15 of which about half were of the red variety.
There were four visitors from Ballarat, four from Melbourne and the balance being locals from the Eastern Victoria Chapter.
The weather was undecided as to whether it would rain or the sun would shine. It was pretty cold but three quarters of the group had their roofs down trying to encourage the sun to make an appearance. We had a couple of light showers long the way but nothing would deter us from our adventure.
The morning session was absolutely fantastic, full of left and right turns and an abundance of curvy corners with a couple of big dippers thrown in for good measure. The views were great … such good farming land looking like a patchwork of green and ploughed ground.
Unfortunately the rain made another appearance and the clouds hung about. We stopped at Boolarra for an unscheduled toilet stop, regroup and natter. Then we were off again for more fantastic MX-5 roads before lunch.
Unfortunately we had to detour on to three and half kilometres of gravel road – yes, you read right – gravel road! Now our pride and joys were all dirty, even if it was unavoidable … don’t worry Alan – all is forgiven.
We had lunch at Mirboo North; a couple of us had a chilly lunch in the park before going in search of our fellow travellers. We found them having a chilly alfresco-style lunch in the main street.
After a photo session we were off again for our quick run back to Yarragon on yet some more great roads and curves. We went via Roches Road which was named after our members Geoff and Paul Roche, both of whom were on the run with us. It was a trip down memory lane for Geoff, Bronwyn and Paul, who all grew up in the area.
In Yarragon we were relegated to the back street as the main street was very busy and there were no parks for us to show our cars off in. The rain hastened our goodbyes and departures with most heading in various directions. Bradshaws and Everetts headed to Moe Motor Inn for the night as we were joining the Club’s southern NSW tour on Monday.
A big thank you to Alan Laine and the Eastern Chapter for a fantastic MX-5 run and their hospitality for the day.