Great Eastland Rally Armidale

Graham and I have been on the organising committee for a car rally this year.

Originally I thought by the time this event came around I would be 6 weeks post my hip replacement,  however my surgery was postponed by 2 weeks so I was still hobbling around with a walking stick.

Anyway, it all turned out well, everyone had a great time and we even made money to donate to charity.

This below was the final night dinner which I will come back to at the end of this post. 

Saturday started with morning tea and a welcome speech from Bron.

 Attending were about 90 people from Tamworth and the coast.

After tea and cake it was a back roads run to Guyra, which Graham marshaled at a corner and we took photos of every car, (for the slide show at the dinner). 

 I'm not going to post photos of all the cars as there were too many. but here are a few.

 Then it was lunch at Guyra Bowling club.

 On Sunday there was an around Armidale run.

I didn't go as I thought it may be a bit much in my current less mobile state. I had also done the run with Graham when we mapped it out in early September.

It seemed to be very successful, people took wrong turns, got lost and overall found it hilarious.  Like herding cats. Maybe they learnt a bit about the towns history as well? 

And it showed off their cars of course.

 

Sunday night was the presentation dinner at Armidale Bowling club, in the ballroom.

I blew up all those balloons by myself, with a helium canister of course. Everyone else was too chicken in case one burst, that will make my mother laugh. We tied them to old tools that Graham had in the garage.

Balloons and helium were donated by local businesses.

 

I also designed all the place mats and Graham helped me laminate them. 

(I hate laminating, its plastic that will take years to break down, but I could see no way around it in this instance).

 

 The fun facts must all be true because I got them from the internet... (-:  

 

The idea was to get people talking at the table and we got 

the idea from something similar from a past rally. 

(But mine are better). 

 

The rally participants all took them home so they must have liked them.  

I've also passed on my word documents to another club who asked for a copy to pinch the idea for their rally. After all,  we pinched ideas for lanyards from another rally. That's the nice thing about car clubs we are all happy to help things evolve.

 

Bron made all the pickles and I made the labels.

Graham also ran the quiz and the slideshow. 

The committee were very pleased with the beautiful trophies which 

were made by Bron's Grandson, Jackson.

https://www.houseofjackson.com.au/ 

Then the raffle was drawn, with winners picking the prize of their choice.

 To my relief, my quilt was one of the first prizes picked. Its gone off to Inverell.  

A lady, its very pleased winner, came up to me later to personally thank me. I was pleased too YAY!

Then we gave out the awards, tidied up the room, popped the balloons and went home.

PHEW!

We had a great team on the committee well done everyone! 

P.S. December 2025 update..

Bronwyn (Rally Director) and Judy (Rally Secretary) 

won the joint club person of the year  for 2025. 

Well done ladies!  

CHMC Rally 2025 – Dubbo

Here we go on a car club adventure, in Dubbo for the Council of Heritage motor clubs rally for 2025. Our club sent 3 cars, ours, Bron and Frosty and Bob.

Rain was predicted and it proved right!

Day one

Saturday it poured rain.

So sadly the botanical gardens display was a washout .

We ended up in a huge shed at the showground.

Usually used for cattle. There was a whiff of cow in the air.

Approximately 150 cars on display and here are just some!

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t manage to take any good photos of the winners, but I think that little red MG sneaking in the background was the one that took out the top award.

 

Then for lunch a long line of cars headed out to ‘Billy’O Bush’

Which would have been nice except for the miserable weather.

Day  Two

Sunny! Yay…

 

 

 

We started at the Dubbo greyhound track for a run around the area.

Below is Graham & Bob at the morning briefing.

Then a stop at the town of Mendooran for morning tea.

(which was so enormous it could have done us for lunch).

 

A dog library an interesting concept!

 

Then is was onwards to Gilgandra, the home of the cooee.

We stopped here for lunch.

 

Then that night was the awards night at the RSL.

Last day.

Breakfast and home.

And finally, an interesting photo on the back of the toilet door at the dog track!

 

 

Car club, first events for 2025

Dangars Falls March 2025

 ````````

 

We have been on a couple of club events this year.

Now we are both retired we can join in the mid-week run.

The first was to the Wollomombi store to the east of Armidale and then a stop at the Wollomombi falls.

Just a bit of a flow, but wasn't that about to change!

Then the second run was a trip to Dorrigo.

The Hastings river club drove up the mountain to meet us at the top of the hill.

 

The cows are very happy with lots of grass as we have had sooooo much rain. Mooooo.

Dorrigo had a ridiculous amount of rain due to the tail end of cyclone Alfred.

Both clubs were invited for morning tea at a home in Dorrigo with the most spectacular views.

On a clear day you can see the sea.

They say at night you can see the glow from the towns on the coast.

 

The climates different from Armidale because of some of the beautiful plants that don't do well at home.

 

After a picnic lunch we stopped at Dangars falls. 

Not danger falls as some cheeky person had put on a sign. 

Although a few stupid people have died here usually doing stupid things.

 

The water is flowing well due to all the rain. With a rainbow.

Bonus, we saw a bearded dragon.

The Cortina was going great until there was a sudden overwhelming smell of petrol. 

We had burst a fuel line near the Inces road intersection, about half a km from Armidale on the Waterfall way…(close enough to call a taxi, which was my first suggestion…)

Graham and Frosty got the Cortina going again, so made it home okay.

I hope it’s still going when we drive it to Dubbo next week.