Australia Day Run to Cordeaux Dam

30 January 2014 / Illawarra Chapter

Click here for lots more photos by Keith Monaghan.

It’s 9am, the weather is cloudy with a chance of showers, but all us MX5’ers have our roofs down. We know it’s going to stay dry.

All the Illawarra members were getting ready to leave at 9.20am when we welcomed MX5’s from Sydney chapter. It swelled our numbers so much we had to leave in 2 groups!

We enjoyed a very pleasant drive up Mt Kembla and along Harry Graham Drive with plenty of beautiful greenery to admire. The road is pretty good now as it was resurfaced 18 months ago, but it still requires a slow and steady pace to avoid colliding with oncoming 4WD’s who like to drive in the centre on the road!

We arrived a few minutes after opening time of 10am. Lucky for us only a small group was occupying one of ‘our’ tables in the covered hut. Our large group certainly added a bit of noise to their peaceful outing.
Our second group of cars arrived 5 minutes later, along with Paul Byers and his magic ‘sand pit’ covered BBQ trailer. We were all fascinated by his invention and it turned out to be a wonderful BBQ, cooking our lunch to perfection. We appreciated Paul bringing it along, so thanks Paul. Another mention to the skills of Mark 'Longtong' Underwood. 

10 minutes later RPM arrived and I think we almost frightened the small group in our shed away. They didn’t stay long after. Really can’t think why??

Fiona and Alex start a cricket match with just the 2 of them, but before long they had a full team enjoying themselves. Alex finished with the impressive bowling figures of 9 for 0 and a run total of far too many!

The number of MX5’s were counted a few times. It started at 29 but after a few drinks the number seemed to be 32. Not sure if they were breeding, but it certainly was an MX5 invasion to the dam.

The awards ceremony presented beautiful trophies to Graham Fletcher (MOTY) and Gillian Fletcher (NMOTY) to warm rounds of applause and appreciation.  See this page for more.
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Everyone enjoyed a great Australia Day, catching up with old friends from other chapters, and being in the great outdoors after a run was wonderful change.

A DAM fine day at Cordeaux DAM

Report by Mark and Hella Underwood

Click here for lots more photos by Keith Monaghan.