June 2021 – President’s Run — Sale

Arti­cle by Jason King

What a great week­end away we had to East Gipp­s­land even­tu­al­ly end­ing up in Sale. The Wednes­day before the week­end it was declared that the COVID restric­tions that were in place for met­ro­pol­i­tan Mel­bourne were lift­ed and it allowed us to trav­el out into the regions.

All mem­bers that were going on the run received a phone call from Janine pri­or to the run, so we knew who was meet­ing where and when. The Sat­ur­day morn­ing start­ed ear­ly for some of us with only 4 mem­bers meet­ing at the club rooms, that was Janine and myself, Big Trev and Sue, Gar­ry Hodge and late com­ers to the trip due to their Gold Coast trip being can­celled Bruce and Lil­lian Gra­ham. It was decid­ed that we would leave the club rooms at 9.00am to arrive at the Long­war­ry meet­ing point earlier.

We left the club rooms on time and made it to Long­war­ry with­out any real dra­ma, it turned out I had no wipers as it just start­ed to rain as we got to Long­war­ry. A quick check of my wiper switch and the feed wire had come off. A new con­nec­tion made on the wire and back onto the switch and all was good.

Long­war­ry
At Long­war­ry we were met by heaps of cars from the club and a few of Derk’s local mates. Dri­ving into the ser­vice sta­tion at Long­war­ry you could be mis­tak­en think­ing you had dri­ven into a 1950’s scene with all the FX and FJ’s in the car park. We left Long­war­ry and had trou­ble free motor­ing to the Trafal­gar Hold­en Muse­um. Gary His­lop picked up the con­vey at Yarragon.

Trafal­gar
At the Trafal­gar muse­um, the muse­um vol­un­teer staff were extreme­ly grate­ful that we had cho­sen their busi­ness to vis­it. The muse­um keeps improv­ing and every mem­ber had a great time at the muse­um. One of the tour guides (vol­un­teer’s) took a lik­ing to Aldo, I don’t know if the feel­ing was mutu­al, but Aldo took it all in good spir­its. At the Muse­um we were met by for­mer mem­ber (and he will re-join) Col­in Proc­tor. Col­in lives in Drouin, not that far from Trafalgar.

Oth­er mem­bers like Alan New­some joined us in Trafalgar.

Before we left for the run, I put a post on Face­book out­lin­ing where the club was going and where we will be. This was great as we had some local peo­ple come out to see the cars in Trafal­gar as they knew we were going to the Museum.

After we left Trafal­gar, some mem­bers went over to the shops to get their lunch. I hear the Trafal­gar bak­ery was a hit, by all those that had their lunch there. Next stop was Trar­al­gon and Gary Hislop’s busi­ness premis­es. On the trip to Trar­al­gon, I and oth­ers passed Wags stopped on the Mor­well bypass. When I went past, Wags was on the phone and it appeared to me that he had just pulled over to talk on the phone, there was noth­ing to sug­gest that he had bro­ken down. Derk was behind me, and he drove straight past as well. How­ev­er, what I do know now was that he had in fact had bro­ken down and oth­er club mem­bers did stop to assist but he called the RACV, to have his vehi­cle towed home. Wags did join us in Sale lat­er in the day in his dai­ly driver.

Pics cour­tesy of Jason and Janine King, Big Trev and others

Trar­al­gon
On arrival at the His­lop busi­ness premis­es, I was the sec­ond to arrive as Pops and Val Dag­gers was the first to arrive and short­ly after us our Orbost mem­bers of Glen and Ali­son Far­ley had arrived in their beau­ti­ful blue FJ sedan. Even­tu­al­ly all of the club mem­bers arrived, and we all had a look at Gary’s boat he has been build­ing for­ev­er and we set all the cars up for a pho­to shoot. Short­ly after the pho­tos and a look around at Gary’s we all left to trav­el to Sale 50 kilo­me­tres away.

Sale
Janine and I were the last to leave Trar­al­gon as I took some video footage of all the ear­lies leav­ing Gary’s place. We stopped at the ser­vo at Trar­al­gon and Janine drove the ute to Sale. I know Sale rea­son­ably well as I was sta­tioned there in the 90s when I was in Vic­to­ria Police, so it was a sur­prise to me when we arrived in Sale and I see some of our mem­bers com­ing from the direc­tion of the RAAF base, which meant that some­one took a wrong turn and every­one else fol­lowed, oh well it was the scenic route.

On arrival at the motel, it was­n’t long until we were joined by some locals at the motel. A guy from Strat­ford (the next town fur­ther east) came and vis­it­ed us in his v6 yel­low FX sedan. It was an inter­est­ing build with buck­et seats in the rear, and inter­est­ing door han­dles to say the least. At the motel we stood around and talked and drank like we nor­mal do on these types of runs.

At 6.00pm we walked over to the Sale Grey­hound Club for din­ner. We had our own area assigned to us and was a good night. How­ev­er, I did hear that one table was wait­ing a lit­tle longer than oth­ers for their meals, besides that all was good. Big Trev kept the staff busy order­ing his bev­er­ages as he was quite thirsty that night. With so many birth­days for the month of June and espe­cial­ly since our sec­re­tary had turned 80 dur­ing the lat­est lock­down, we ordered some desserts for the birth­day peo­ple, and all sang hap­py birth­day to the birth­day guys. We all had a good night and even­tu­al­ly walked back to our rooms and even­tu­al­ly called it a night.

It was an ear­ly start to Sun­day morn­ing with Break­fast booked in town at 8.00am We had to have pre-book­ings arranged due to seat­ing lim­its and restric­tions etc. I walked out of my room and saw that Gary Beard­s­ley was jump start­ing Big Trev FX. Noth­ing new there that an FJ is com­ing to the res­cue to the FX. We all went into town and had break­fast. After break­fast we drove over to Maf­fra to the Gipp­s­land Vehi­cle Col­lec­tion, but before we left Sale, Aldo was hav­ing some issues with his car­bie. Gary His­lop did his mag­ic and Aldo was on his way like the rest of us.

Maf­fra
Maf­fra is only 19 kilo­me­tres away from Sale, so it was a short dri­ve. On arrival at the muse­um, it was a nice site to see all the cars parked on the lawn. Many pho­tos were tak­en by our club mem­bers, muse­um staff and vis­i­tors. A trip in the muse­um was good, it was all types of motor vehi­cles and bikes. There was also a huge col­lec­tion of mod­el cars. This col­lec­tion was owned by only one per­son. A high­light for those who have not seen it, was the FJ sta­tion wag­on made by the Cordell fam­i­ly. It is a well-known car and is well built. After the muse­um, mem­bers all start­ed to even­tu­al­ly leave and head for home.

Janine and I, Gary and Judy His­lop and Bruce and Lil­lian Gra­ham all went to a pub in Maf­fra for lunch before we made our way home. It must have been nice and warm and com­fort­able in that pub as we stayed there for a few hours not leav­ing to go home until 2.30pm. On the way home Janine and I stopped off in Trafal­gar to see if the bak­ery was open (it was­n’t) and Bruce and Lil­lian passed us in Trafal­gar. We con­tin­ued on our way and arrived home around 5.30pm.

It was a good week­end, a lot of kilo­me­tres over 2 days but well worth it. There were 41 peo­ple on the run, 16 cars and 21 rooms booked. The local hos­pi­tal­i­ty of all the venues was very wel­com­ing and could­n’t do enough for all of us. A good time was had by all.

Mem­bers with earlies.

Gary & Les­ley Beard­s­ley
Jim & Kaye Bish­op
Peter & Lin­da Cor­ri­g­an
Ray & Val Dag­gers
Trevor & Sue Dempsey
Ray & Judy Edsall
Glen & Ali­son Far­ley
Tim & Nic­ki Fet­tell
Aldo Gianchi­no
Rod & Sharon Grum­mitt
Gary & Judy His­lop
Gar­ry Hodge
Ray & Janet Howlett
Jason & Janine King
Kim & Janine Radenic
Derk Tuik
Mark & Janet Waghorn

Mem­bers without.

Michael Del­zop­po
Bruce & Lil­lian Gra­ham
Rick & Jen­ny Kings­ley
Allan New­some
Tim & Michelle Sells
Mau­rie & Cherie Tehan

Vis­i­tors:
Daryl and his son Luke — Blue FJ sedan
Col­in and Kris — Chev pick up
Col­in Proctor