Dave & Karen's Pub & Ferry Run (not via the Truro ferry Dave!!!) 9/7/17

For those of you newer to the club who haven't heard about the Truro ferry experience way back in about 2005, and those that may have forgotten, although I don't know how you could 'cause I certainly get reminded frequently! … fun fact about this club if you pull a clanger like this its unlikely you will be allowed to forget it…

Truro Ferry 2005 we'll call it, went like this - I, as in Dave (wasn't Karen's directions this time) volunteered to lead the club on a run to meet up with a car club display we'd been invited to at Swan Reach so I worked out a route through countryside I'd never been to before using a fairly new concept at the time called 'Google Maps' and I also wanted to add a little variety so asked Google for an 'alternative' scenic route and made the rookie mistake of not driving the run first. Anyway, at Truro the Google map started to take me and the other Corvettes down a gravel road to the "Truro Ferry" (gravel road, that's when I knew I was in trouble - total no-no!) fortunately a very kind member in a red C4 (AJ) stepped in and quietly explained there was no ferry and no river at Truro and none of the Corvettes would be interested in the gravel road. Anyway, we did make it to Swan Reach be it a little late, I learned a valuable lesson and thanks to you lot for never forgetting even some 12 years later!

So I set out to redeem myself with our Pub & Ferry run which turned out to be an epic day. Most of you know that we generally turn up for Sunday runs just on leaving time mostly because the woman I live with isn't a morning person and won't get out of bed early enough to go and stand in a cold car park (as she puts it)! So the Queen Of the Household decided that if we were organising the run, the meeting point was to be at our home in Littlehampton at 9am with the deal that Karen would make you a coffee if she was awake and if she wasn't you would have to wake her because I'm not game… fortunately for all she was up and had coffee and muffins for everyone.

We left Littlehampton a tad later than expected at 9.45 with 3 C5's,1C4, 1 Dodge, a ComVette and two other daily drivers, and headed through the hills on the old Princes Highway via Nairne, Kanmantoo and Callington and on to Woodchester - a great road to open the Vettes up on fortunately we didn't because the local constabulary came down the road towards us at one point. Jim told me he was glad he wasn't the Captain as he would have been done! As we pulled into High St Strathalbyn Les & Judy connected from the south with us in their C3. Perfect timing, couldn't have organised it better! We all piled into the warmth of the Appleseed Café in High St Strathalbyn for delicious coffees and whatever else took our fancies! It was a busy little place for a country town on a Sunday morning but fortunately we had a couple of tables reserved for us.

We left Strathalbyn around 11.30am to head for our first ferry at Wellington (all good, I knew there was one there!) a nice drive through the vineyards of Langhorne Creek and open farming country with some great roads once we got around the slow Sunday drivers. We had a bit of a wait for the ferry at Wellington luckily there was a bathroom at the waiting point after all the coffee that had been consumed during the morning. Once over the other side of the river we waived goodbye to Jim & Catherine in the Dodger (they had a better offer for lunch) and the rest of us high-tailed it to the Meningee Pub for lunch. Lunch was great although the chef seemed to struggle with getting our meals out in good time, or serving entrees before mains, which was odd because we were the only people there! After lunch Phase Two was find another ferry to conquer Ferry Phobia so we set off for a 133k run to Mannum, saying goodbye to Gary & Cathy and Les & Judy along the way.

The run along the old Princes highway/Karoonda highway/Burdett Road was smooth & uneventful for the 3 remaining Corvettes & 3 daily drivers so I took care of the mandatory U Turn at the Mannum Ferry although Lynda said it looked more like a roundabout! Over the second ferry and we all stopped at the Pretoria Hotel for a beer, coffee or kiddies serve ice-cream for Ray, which we all paid him out for but looked super nice. Said our goodbyes here to Rob & Karen, Ray, and Tim & Leslie and headed onto the Mt Torrens Hotel. Karen & I rolled into the Mt Torrens hotel with Pete & Lynda and Breck & Helen for farewell drinks by their open fire and said our final goodbyes just after 6pm.

It was a great day - plenty of driving, lots of coffee, good food, lots of laughs, good weather mostly and most importantly hanging out with great friends - thanks heaps to everyone that came and made our run the success it was. Put your hand up and organise a run - its great fun!

Ps thanks for all your great photos Pete!