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It was great to see a whole lot of new cars on this cruise. Quite a lot of the usual group were missing in action for this one, but we still managed to have 13 cars along which made for a nicely sized group to cruise with. With not one, but two Torana’s sitting at home, both very much un-driveable, I had the pleasure of taking the reigns of Deb’s mighty EH! No worries I thought, this will be nice cruising along. I then remembered the ‘EHGIRL’ plates. I patiently waited, and yep, sure enough, Simon and Kath did the honours of commenting just how much they suited me. If only I’d worn my pink top……… Anyway, it was great to see a good variety of cars out for the cruise - Mmmm, that Valiant Pacer is one niiiiice looking machine! Great looking HR too - Dave (DC) wasn’t a happy chappy seeing so many nice 6’s along – he reckons he would have been in his element if his trusty ol’ Torana had have been there! He mentioned something about giving them all a run for their money? Mark had the HG out for it’s first official club run too, looking very nice with it’s freshly lowered suspension. A handful of nice Commodores, both old-school and modern, Kath’s Gem Gem, a nice shiny BA XR6 Turbo, and James’ ED Ford had the honour of pulling the BBQ trailer along. Rather than driving straight up the usual way to get to Maroondah Dam, we actually headed in a completely different direction, driving out towards Belgrave/Gembrook and out through Woori Yallock, popping into Healesville the back way, so that was great with some really scenic stretches of road. As we passed under the Puffing Billy bridge, you could not have timed things better if you tried to! Good ol Puffing Billy came puffing along and passed right over the top of us. Arms and legs hanging out everywhere, kids falling out the windows (nah I’m only kidding)…… we gave them all a wave and continued on our way up the hill…. As we arrived in Healesville, Mark pulled into a servo to refuel his rocketship - gotta love those small fuel-cells! (Or maybe the 406 under the hood had something to do with it???). Either way, he won’t be entering endurance races any time soon that’s for sure. The rest of us kept on cruising and a few k’s further on we found ourselves at Maroondah Dam. Dean was the final car to pull in from our convoy, after copping every possible light and bit of traffic on the road! Pulling into the carpark, we slotted the cars into place & fired up the mighty Torana BBQ trailer. A few raindrops were threatening to ruin things, but thankfully they held off! Kath took charge of the tongs & cooked up a feast on the BBQ. I was starving, so it was great to have a hot lunch. Mark was quite interested in the fact that I was attempting to eat a deformed snag (yes it was twice the size of your typical snag), and he even made the comment “You’ve got a big snag there Shubes”, and well, he was right, it sure was a big one. As people finished their lunches, the sky was slowly getting darker and darker. So much for the hot, sunny day we were meant to be having! Around this time various people decided to go for a quick walk to check out the Dam. Let me tell you, that damn wall is damn big. There was a fair bit of water shooting from the overflow which was good to see too, since the last few times I’ve been up, there’s been none at all. The weather suddenly decided to start unleashing some showers, so that was enough to see us jump back into the car and cruise back home again. Thanks to Kath for a job well done on the Barbie. All in all, a very relaxing way to spend a Sunday, a bit of a chin-wag and a BBQ lunch, very tidy! Thanks to everyone that came along, see you all on the next cruise…. - Brett (Shubes) |