January 2022 – Australia Day — Moonee Ponds

Arti­cle by Janine King

Thank you to El Pres­i­dente, Jason, for allow­ing me to write my first run report for the club. I know I am not a full mem­ber, but I am part of a fam­i­ly mem­ber­ship, so hope it is accept­able to put my two bob in this time — besides there was no one else to do it!

Well, we had an inter­est­ing lead up to the Aus­tralia Day run. We were due to go to High­ton Falls in Gee­long, but the weath­er put a span­ner in the works with the fore­cast being very hot fol­lowed by storms/rain. This caused a bit of anx­i­ety for those who had to trav­el a big dis­tance and there was going to be a low atten­dance, so it was decid­ed to reduce the dis­tance to an inner north­ern sub­urb to meet the loca­tion halfway. See­ing its Aus­tralia Day, we chose to vis­it a Queen 👸 and a King 🤴.

We left the club rooms at 9.30am and trav­elled down Spring­vale Rd onto the East­ern Free­way towards the city. It was a great way to go as we were able to show­case our ear­lies in con­voy through the edge of the CBD, around Carl­ton Ceme­tery and then through Roy­al Park, past the Zoo. Chris Fox met up with us and joined the con­voy. We then trav­elled 5kms up Mount Alexan­der Rd to Moonee Ponds where the very pret­ty Queens Park is locat­ed (vis­it­ing the “Queen”). Steve Davies and Bren­ton Schi­er met us there.

We found a nice shady spot beside the cafe for morn­ing tea to find that the cafe was closed…doh! I googled their web­site the day before and there was no indi­ca­tion that they would close on a pub­lic hol­i­day as they trade 7 days per week. So to save the day, I offered to dri­ve up to the shops for a cof­fee run and Aldo came with me to help.

We then moved on to vis­it the “King” — Jason King. There is no cov­er at Queens Park, so Jason and I offered our home from lunchtime where we had an ample under cov­er area for the fore­cast­ed after­noon rain. Some brought their pic­nic lunch, while some used the bar­bie. I nicked up the super­mar­ket to grab some food to cater for any­one who need­ed a feed. It was fin­ished off with a nice fruit plat­ter. There was plen­ty to go around.

We all had a nice after­noon, and it was a relief to go inside the house to cool off with the air­con. I even hand­ed out frozen zoop­er doop­er icey­poles which went down a treat.

The last lot of mem­bers left around 4pm and it end­ed up being a great day. It appears we all beat the rain by the time every­one got home. Thank you to those who quick­ly adapt­ed to the change of loca­tion with­in 24hrs and made the effort and risk such an extreme weath­er day.

Janine King (First Lady 😜)

Mem­bers with earlies.

Peter Cor­ri­g­an
Steve Davies
Wayne & Anna Flem­ing
Chris Fox
Gary & Judy His­lop
Jason & Janine King
Ian & Jane Maclean
Bren­ton & Lyn Schier

Mem­bers without.

Aldo Gianchi­no