Club Run to Mitchelton Winery
22nd November, 2015
22nd November, 2015
I'm unsure how the Events boys do it. How do you guys pick a Sunday - several weeks in advance - that is perfect? Saturday was cool, windy, cloudy with a 50% chance of rain, Monday morning is even worse, but Sunday was absolutely stunning! It's not the first time you've picked a perfect Sunday out of a crappy week. Keep it up!
This run began at the Huntly shops with members rolling up from 10am for an 11am departure. A good turnout of 20 cars, with a few rarely seen vehicles participating. I wasn't taking the Rotor on this run - knee operation the previous week, rough roads, no suspension.....
This was the first time that my car had missed a run, but now I had the chance to ride as a passenger in Drew's Mustang.
After a brief meeting to explain the day, we set off from Huntly at 11:15, heading out through Goornong. A couple of klm's before the right turn on to the Rushworth road we were following Adrian in his Charger when we noticed a puff of smoke from under the vehicle which quickly turned into a blue haze coming from underneath. Smoke is never a good thing. We flashed him and he pulled over. He was already aware something was amiss. It looked like the transmission was leaking and dropping fluid on the the hot exhaust. That seemed to have put paid to his driving pleasure for today. He turned around and limped slowly back towards Bendigo while we resumed on our way to Rushworth. Unknown to us though, the leak stopped in the Charger, no more smoke or drips. We'd only been in Rushworth for 15 minutes when Adrian pulled up all happy and pleased that all was now well. He'd just had some work done to the tranny - overfilled maybe?
After lunch we hit the roads towards Nagambie. I'm sure not I'm not alone in thinking of the feeling of freedom as you cruise in an old classic down the country roads. The noise, the smell, the wind in your hair. As planned, we arrived at Kirwan's Bridge and grouped together at the start. My mate Andy had brought his quadcopter with a GoPro so both him and I set up on the other side of the bridge to do some video and some photos of the cars coming across the bridge. The bridge is rough. It's wooden with splinters large enough to go through your sump and cracks between the planks wide enough to swallow a motorbike and rider. It has a 6 tonne load limit and we had 25 cars on it at once. Scary.
(Although Kim did point out that the 6 tonne limit is in one spot, not spread out over the whole bridge).
But it was obviously safe. We continued on to the winery without seeing (or running over) any of the 200 cyclists that were racing on the nearby roads. Mitchelton is a nice place. I don't think I had been here since the early 80's. Several other members commented the same. And 200 hundred cyclists weren't that bad - there were food stalls, free jumping jumping castle for the kids and a beer stall for the adults. Not to mention the lycra clad ladies.......
After a couple of hours we said our goodbyes to Mitchelton and travelled along the Costerfield road, through Heathcote and on to the Farmers Arms hotel to recount the adventures of the day over a couple of beers. Nice. Thanks to the Events guys for organising this event and thanks to all the members that came along and made it a memorable day.
Thanks to Drew for taking me in his convertible. Enjoyed it heaps, thanks for the ride. And thanks to my mate Andy for getting some video footage. We realised that it was a little dangerous to get the quadcopter too close to valuable cars, or too close to valuable kids, and therefore the video is not as close to the cars as we would have liked. And we need to get a directional mic so you can hear the sounds of the cars. But it's a start. Something to work on. It would be super cool to have the copter chase your vehicle down the road at 80kph. There's potential.
This run began at the Huntly shops with members rolling up from 10am for an 11am departure. A good turnout of 20 cars, with a few rarely seen vehicles participating. I wasn't taking the Rotor on this run - knee operation the previous week, rough roads, no suspension.....
This was the first time that my car had missed a run, but now I had the chance to ride as a passenger in Drew's Mustang.
After a brief meeting to explain the day, we set off from Huntly at 11:15, heading out through Goornong. A couple of klm's before the right turn on to the Rushworth road we were following Adrian in his Charger when we noticed a puff of smoke from under the vehicle which quickly turned into a blue haze coming from underneath. Smoke is never a good thing. We flashed him and he pulled over. He was already aware something was amiss. It looked like the transmission was leaking and dropping fluid on the the hot exhaust. That seemed to have put paid to his driving pleasure for today. He turned around and limped slowly back towards Bendigo while we resumed on our way to Rushworth. Unknown to us though, the leak stopped in the Charger, no more smoke or drips. We'd only been in Rushworth for 15 minutes when Adrian pulled up all happy and pleased that all was now well. He'd just had some work done to the tranny - overfilled maybe?
After lunch we hit the roads towards Nagambie. I'm sure not I'm not alone in thinking of the feeling of freedom as you cruise in an old classic down the country roads. The noise, the smell, the wind in your hair. As planned, we arrived at Kirwan's Bridge and grouped together at the start. My mate Andy had brought his quadcopter with a GoPro so both him and I set up on the other side of the bridge to do some video and some photos of the cars coming across the bridge. The bridge is rough. It's wooden with splinters large enough to go through your sump and cracks between the planks wide enough to swallow a motorbike and rider. It has a 6 tonne load limit and we had 25 cars on it at once. Scary.
(Although Kim did point out that the 6 tonne limit is in one spot, not spread out over the whole bridge).
But it was obviously safe. We continued on to the winery without seeing (or running over) any of the 200 cyclists that were racing on the nearby roads. Mitchelton is a nice place. I don't think I had been here since the early 80's. Several other members commented the same. And 200 hundred cyclists weren't that bad - there were food stalls, free jumping jumping castle for the kids and a beer stall for the adults. Not to mention the lycra clad ladies.......
After a couple of hours we said our goodbyes to Mitchelton and travelled along the Costerfield road, through Heathcote and on to the Farmers Arms hotel to recount the adventures of the day over a couple of beers. Nice. Thanks to the Events guys for organising this event and thanks to all the members that came along and made it a memorable day.
Thanks to Drew for taking me in his convertible. Enjoyed it heaps, thanks for the ride. And thanks to my mate Andy for getting some video footage. We realised that it was a little dangerous to get the quadcopter too close to valuable cars, or too close to valuable kids, and therefore the video is not as close to the cars as we would have liked. And we need to get a directional mic so you can hear the sounds of the cars. But it's a start. Something to work on. It would be super cool to have the copter chase your vehicle down the road at 80kph. There's potential.
(Depending on your internet speed, you may need the video to load before playing.)
We'll see you on a cruise somewhere!
