Max & Mark's Mystery Muster
29 August 2013 / Words by Max Kelly & Mark Gray, Photos by Peter Hilkmann
The weather on Sunday 18 August was perfect for a drive to a mystery location. With 20 MX-5s and 33 people being given sealed trip notes and M&Ms chocolates to enjoy along the way and a Speedo Trip Meter Challenge, they all thought it would be easy.
A hint was given before leaving our usual meeting location of BP Beresfield and we headed off down the F3 to our first brief stop at Mount Sugarloaf with spectacular views over Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
At this short stop a stage 1 questionnaire was given out to see who could guess our morning tea location and they were only given 5 minutes to answer! Back on the road, the radio chat started with speculation of where we would end up. Weaving our way through the back suburbs of Maitland and crossing the New England Highway at Luskintyre and Tocal arriving at John Tucker Park in Paterson for our morning tea stop and we managed to lose no-one!!!
Our 45 minute stop allowed everyone to recharge on coffee, tea and homemade delights before the chatter started about our lunch location. Again, a quick questionnaire was handed out with 5 minutes given to complete.
Answers in, we headed south (just to confuse people) and made a quick left hand turn towards Martins Creek where we followed the Paterson River and headed towards Dungog enjoying some of the narrow and winding roads never before explored by the Hunter Chapter, which proved a nice leisurely drive.
We arrived at our lunch location of East Gresford (Beatty Hotel) for their lovely grub style food and a well earned cold refreshment. We were lucky to have the use of their private dining room so there was plenty of chatter about the drive with lots of laughs.
During our meal it was time to announce the winners of the questionnaires and Speedo challenge. There were some interesting answers and from our 33 starters only 3 people managed to correctly pick the locations.
Stage 1 to morning tea location - a winner was drawn from the hat as 3 people chose the same answer, that lucky winner was Maureen Hilkmann.
Stage 2 to lunch location - again a winner was chosen from the hat as 3 people had the same answer and that lucky winner was Vicki Adams.
The Speedo trip meter challenge was a -10 to +7km difference from the "official" run distance and the closest winner was Diann Leer-Miller with 185km.
A special thank you to Diane Barry for Max & Mark's new M&M T-shirts, suitably embroidered with MX-5s, we think they are just awesome!
Finally the day drew to a close and it was agreed that not only was it the BEST EVA but in fine words from Max Kelly, it was an UNBEATABLE run.
