Woman Behind the Wheel Hunter, Sydney,RPM
10 March 2026 / Written By: Chris Cameron. Photos: Wendy Mulholland & Helen Mayo
Dark clouds threatened rain at the Freemans Waterholes meeting point for Hunter’s run to our International Women’s Day lunch with Sydney and RPM at Berowra Village Tavern. Included in our group were second-time around members Marg and Lin in their newly acquired ND as well as several friends as welcome guests. To go topless, or play it safe – that was the question! Most of the 19 ladies travelling in 11 cars gambled on the weather staying fine & put their tops down, but in a hard-top NC you can get quite wet by the time you find a good pull-over location and the automatic close completes. So as run leader, I took the safe option and opted for top-up.
We headed off towards the Central Coast, passing through Cooranbong and the outskirts of Morisset with comparatively little traffic for a Sunday morning, enabling the convoy to stay well in-touch most of the time. Towards the end of Hue Hue Road we were getting a little separated, so a quick regroup at Woodberry Inn Park got all ducks in a row again before we crossed over to the M1 for the short stint to Kariong and our turn onto the (Old) Pacific Hwy. Now, as all Hunter and Sydney members well know, this is a very scenic and leisurely (emphasis on the ‘leisurely’) way to travel between Kariong and Cowan. Traffic was almost non-existent and the sun peeked through the cloud from time to time, filtering beautifully through the trees that line the route. The down-side of course is that the road has a maximum speed limit of 60kmh for most of its length and it is notoriously well-patrolled by highway patrol and camera cars. So you have plenty of time to just cruise along and enjoy the scenery! We wound our way down through its twists and turns passing Mooney Mooney and crossing the old Hawkesbury bridge to start the climb back up towards Cowan 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
Our first warning of trouble ahead was via the electronic overhead message boards as we approached the Hawkesbury bridge. The warning said a major accident had occurred at Mt Cola on the M1, so I naively thought that we would by-pass it. Sadly, I was wrong. Big time. All southbound traffic was being redirected from the M1 onto the Pacific Hwy exit ramp just north of our merge point – and it was pretty much at a standstill due to the many sets of traffic lights in close proximity. We only had 2km to go to our turnoff at Berowra, but it took us 25 minutes. It could have been a lot worse though – Sydney traffic does merging pretty efficiently and we all made our way safely across the 2 lanes of traffic to turn right to our lunch location, arriving only 5 minutes after our reservation time.
Not surprisingly, the Sydney ladies had already arrived, accompanied by Karen from RPM and Wendy Parsonage’s mum who lives nearby. The tavern had set up two big tables, giving us plenty of space to spread out while we chatted over lunch. The food was tasty and plentiful, the service friendly, and the company excellent, making for an all-round enjoyable experience. We had made the decision beforehand to make regalia optional to take the opportunity to dress up for our outing, just to make it a little bit more special - and we made a very classy group.
All too soon we had to say our goodbye’s and head home. Leaving in small groups, most Hunter members opted for the M1, but some ladies did return via the Pacific Hwy route. I managed top-down as far as Hue Hue Road before the rain started, but it persisted and got progressively heavier and that was the end of that!
Thank you to all the ladies – 17 members and 7 visitors - who came along and made the day great fun. Getting our neighbouring chapters together made for an extra-special day and we will be looking to find opportunities to do this again soon. All suggestions welcome for where we can meet up for the next one!
