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Once upon a time in Bayswater (actually on the 3rd of June at 11.00) Eastside met in the Bunnings car park. The weather was great, nice and sunny but bloody freezing. A couple of the passengers were a little under the weather as it was our merchandising chickie's 25th birthday party the night before. (Happy Birthday Deb!). The route was kept pretty direct to save confusion on a Sunday morning. We left a little after schedule but once we got going the majority of the group stayed together. FULNSE was the lead car for the day as it was nice and easy to keep sight of a bright yellow XE. We kept the speed right down to keep the group nice and close. (Thanks everyone for such a great atmosphere as every one's driving was what we expect.) The trip we took down was not the normal way most people would take to Mordialloc just to mix things up a bit. We headed down Wellington then through Narre. We organised the first stop that morning so it didn't go as planned. We wanted to stop at Fountain Gate Bunnings but we should have expected (but didn't) that it was packed, so we drove around to the back of the complex where they was enough room for the cars that we had. Deb being the champ that she is shouted everyone breakfast by dishing out the leftover (pre-cut) Chocolate Birthday cake from the night before. Mmmmm…. That was good cake. We headed off and again everyone stayed pretty close together. Not much happened from Bunnings to Mordi but it was a nice scenic drive regardless. The staff at Doyles assured me that there would be sufficient parking at the Hotel, as I probably should have expected, there wasn't - it was chocka block. So through the drive though bottle-o onto a more roomy car park. One of the staff freaked a bit with us all sitting in the drive through with noisy cars and not buying anything, he bailed me up and asked what was going on. He was fine when he realised we were potential paying customers. We parked across the road and right near the canal. It was heaps better parking there than at the joint because it made for a pretty good photo opportunity. The place inside was just as packed as the car park. I started to get a little worried that they had forgotten we were coming because we couldn't spot a table that was going to seat the 25ish of us. We were taken through to our own room though with our own balcony that looked over the yacht club's Marina. Very pretty. The food was great and the company was even better. It was really good to sit down and chat to every one in a different environment than what we were all used to. When we were all full to the brim we headed our separate ways. A lot of the guys headed to check out the stock for the Shannons auction the next night. If you would like to know the results see Dave Johnston. Thanks again to everyone that came along. - Bec |