30 Sep 2016

Well it sure has been a while between travels, though here we go a long weekend and a Morris Minor car show in Parkes, regional New South Wales.

It's been a bit of a mystery as to whether the show would happen given the state of flooding and cut roads only 25 kilometres down the road from Parkes, but there was a clear road still open and so off on a road trip.

What should have been a 10 hour drive with stops along the way to stretch, fuel and eat, turned into a twelve hour drive from 0545 to 1830, including a few fuel stops and one stretch meal break. twisting and turning along roads through central NSW was somewhat interesting. the condition of the roads has been quite terrible once away from the main highways as all of the big trucks that usually stick to the main highways have had to divert off through the small towns and back country roads and they are just tearing the surface up as they are far to heavy. Some sections of the roads were down to 40 kilometres per hour so you could try to avoid the worst of the pot holes that have opened up and that was an effort to achieve I assure you. It rained most of the way up, well off and on, though more on than off so it wasn't a great run, though still interesting. The Count ran faultlessly, as usual, perhaps a tiny bit heavy on fuel, though not really a problem.

It turns out that some of the organizers of the show are staying at the same place as I am, next room actually and I heard them mention to someone on the phone not long after I arrived that "there was a little Morrie with Victorian registration, so you have no excuse", so it will be interesting to see how many people turn up tomorrow. If you listen to the news the whole place is underwater and everyone is trapped, so a lot of people have been scared off I bet. We'll see I guess...

Crossing the boarder from Victoria to New South Wales at Wodonga / Albury

The Murray flowing high and very well along the boarder

Boarder art. there were brief moments of sunny blue sky

Lots of water and paddocks under it out west 

canola always makes for a bright image even in poor weather, though bit of sun here again

Parkes main street on a Friday night 9bad phone pic), Sir Henry on his corner

4 April 2015

The Nationals "show and shine" this morning and many cars turned up by 0900, which I guess is great as the official start was 0830. Lots of cars just there for display, as was the Count, though a lot still there for the whole competition and trophies end of show. Over all it was a great range of cars and standards really varied from the trailer attendees to the original and the everyday drivers, fantastic to see such variety. Many people really put so much time and effort into the cars and some really put so much money into them as well. Lots of cars that have been retrofitted with running gear from a variety of other cars, though mainly Nissan/Datsun and Toyota engines and disc brakes, some with turbos and the like. My personal taste is for the original Morris/Austin engines though I can certainly appreciate the effort and engineering that goes into the engine swapped cars, the performance from a Morrie with turbocharged twin cam Toyota 4AGE installed must surely be amazing. Interesting too to see how many cars have also been fitted with dual circuit brakes as well, even the cars with original engines, guess it is much easier to work on and certainly safer if one circuit fails.

 Nissan power

 Toyota Twin Cam Turbo

   Sue's car always attracts attention

Over all some amazing cars to see and great to catch up with some of the Canberra club members, weather and location were both great.

On the way home stopped by some friends place and took the previous owner of the car for a drive before heading back to Melbourne, which seemed like a fast four hour journey this time and on arrival it appears that one of the rear tyres has decided to give up the ghost and has developed a leak fro the inner tube.  

3 April 2015 (later)

Well the drive up to Albury for the 17th Morris Minor National meeting seemed long though it was only 4 hours, probably seemed longer as there was so much traffic leaving Melbourne for the Easter weekend and there was a fair delay on the highway following what may have been an accident, according to some, though we saw no evidence of any accidents.

Checked into the rally registration area later in the afternoon and seems that most folk had been and gone already by that time, so then headed to the accommodation and checked into there too. Driving around town in the afternoon was interesting to spot Minors all over the place, not huge numbers, but every now and then one or two would go past of be parked, certainly interesting to see all the variety of cars about. Heading out to the pub for dinner there were a number of cars parked up as the official rally festivities had begun and that was a great sight to see, naturally some photos were taken on the fly.

View from the hotel room 

 Some of the cars out for dinner

3 April 2015

Well been a while between posts and between runs in the Count, other than the usual running about town. Well today sees another run of some 4 or so hours up the Hume Highway, not the most inspiring piece of road though very direct and well kept, to the Albury Wodonga region for the 2015 Australian Morris Minor Clubs national rally. Albury Wodonga is another of the "Twin Towns" straddling the New South Wales and Victorian border, with Albury on the New South Wales side and Wodonga on the right or Victorian side. It's an interesting and expanding regional area and it seems not to have suffered much at all with the not too distant highway bypass that took the trucks of the main streets a few years back.

So the trunions have been greased, fluids and tyres checked, the spare tyre has a new valve and hopefully will hold some air and we're ready to head off shortly for the run. Not expecting anything untoward on the trip and given the reliability around Australia last year expect it should be all good. Looking forward to seeing some other Minors from around Australia.

Some photos

2 November 2014

Well not part of the around Australia run, but still a run to somewhere new in Australia in the Count. The Morris Minor Car Club of Victoria held its annual Day of the Morris Minor and this year it was goodbye to the usual location and off up country to the Morris Minor Garage on a property near Harcourt, which itself is not far from Bendigo in Victoria.

With the weather not looking too promising it was off reasonably early in the Count for a rather uninspiring drive up the Calder Freeway to get there, a couple of hour drive away and 117 Kilometres. That said following the direction from Google maps really was reliant on the town actually naming it's streets and as it didn't we ended up going the wrong way. So what should have been 12 minute drive from Harcourt was a 35 minute drive through the countryside, which was quite good really as it is beautiful country around there.

The venue was really jumping and there were lots of folk and Morris Minors about, they really do get a great turn out for the day whenever they hold it. Anyway we were asked to park in a midst the Series II s, as that is what the Count is, though they decided they were running short of room and asked me to park around the bend in amongst the trees, which was fairly disappointing as no one even looked at the Count down there. The venue itself is really quite impressive and the Cafe was doing a roaring trade. Was nice to be able to have a chat with Watto of the BMC Experience magazine about his last run in the Shitbox Rally (I kid you not that is what it is called, I am not just being rude), which can be reviewed here if you're interested Shitbox Rally.

The cars at the Garage are all really impressive and in great condition, well expect those out in the grave yard, but it really was heartening to see that even though they are in such fine condition they all still have trays under them to catch the oil drips. We wandered the assembled cars and made our selections for the prize winners of the day and then we jumped back in the car and headed off to Malmsbury for some lunch before heading back to Melbourne. Anyway the pics are no doubt much better that I can explain so I hope you enjoy.

 Stuck out alone behind the trees

 Not quite Morries

 The Series IIs