Sunburnt Express to Bay to Birdwood

[Quombi]

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[Wombatventures]

Up and away from Julie & Pop’s with a quick stop in at the auto shop for another spare trailer wheel bearing. Headed south west to Ouyen for first stop and wander. Onwards through the Mallee country, or what’s left of the roadside mallee vegetation. Another silo photo. Dno thinks we should take photos of unpainted ones instead! ?. Lunch stop at Murrayville Railway station (we won’t go into that but it started with extracting steak from a freezer amongst the 1970’s souvenirs and getting an electric frypan out of the cupboard). Another stop at Tailem Bend and ‘wowed’ at the ‘Uneek Animal’ display. Especially the contrast between homemade, bunnings plastic and petrified roadkill exhibit’s. Across the mighty Murray (3rd longest navigable river in the world. Just over 2500kms in length. 16th longest in length) and touchdown at cousin Russ and Bron’s at Happy Valley for a few days. 

We've got a heap of painted silos fairly local to us but sadly in the last few months the Caltowie silo has been demolished and the one nearest to us at Yongala is almost gone as well. 
Our local car clubs often do silo cruises. 
I remember going to the first ever Bay to Birdwood and sitting alongside the road near Inglewood  it was a long reasonably steep climb and some of the Vintage (pre 1930) cars were at an absolute crawl. A great childhood memory, in fact I have photos of it which are from the first roll of film I ever took!
Looks like you're having a great trip, trailer bearing excepted.

[Quombi]

We got the Express off the trailer and Dno gave it the one over from the journey. Scrubbed the insects off the back windows and we are right to go. Took a steady day sight seeing with Russ & Bron and too much good food! Saturday we booked into meet up with a family who had a similar Samba back in the 1960’s. Dno did a quick adjust from heavy trailer hauling to city splitscreen driving. Luckily Adelaide city is fairly relaxed and we found our way easily. The only fix was after we found a crack in the fan belt. Tess, always prepared and used to the stops, had a book at hand. 
A great afternoon with the Pryor family, reminiscing about samba’s and talking VW’s. A nephew and family also travelled from Brisbane for the weekend so we were able to fit them all in for a trip in the Express with Dave at the wheel. A total bummer but we found out that unfortunately their family Samba wasn’t ours, as it left Daves hands in undercoat and with some body modifications.  We reenacted the old family photo anyway and got a photo of Dave and twin sister, Dyann, with the bus. Dave and Dno talked VW’s into the early evening and after a Shed Tour through several very smick beetles and a barndoor kombi we had to get moving again.
     
   
   
   

[Quombi]

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[Quombi]

Bay to Birdwood Day so up early and into correct attire (dress in the era of your vehicle). For those who don’t know, Bay to Birdwood is one of the world’s great historic motoring events and has been a standout fixture on the South Australian events calendar since 1980.
Thousands of spectators line the 67 kilometre route to view the passing parade of historic motoring from West Beach through to the National Motor Museum at Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills. Held annually, the Bay to Birdwood is a citizen-collector historic motoring event that draws participants from around Australia (including Millthorpe!) and the world to celebrate all things vintage vehicles.
We made it to line up with no issues and wandered the many rows of vehicles and chatted to the masses. The drive started for us about 10am and took 1.5hrs. Crowds were out for the whole length of the route with picnics, champagne breakfasts, bars and lots of ‘honk’ signs. Everyone loves a kombi with lots of waves and chats at the stop lights. We made it a challenge to get the grumpy old men to wave at us and i think we only missed out on 2 waves ??
The reduction hubs ate up the hills, leaving several steaming vehicles behind. Dno calling out “air cooled all the way”. 
   
   
   
   
   

[Quombi]

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[Quombi]

Having arrived at Birdwood we parked up in a large paddock only to realise it was one of 3 large paddocks! Cars and other vehicles in every direction, was amazing. We spent the next few hours wandering around looking at everything from Model T’s right through to a Subaro Agquip ute to a two tone brown Magna! The last 2 I grew up with in my childhood ? obviously showing my age. 
I sent the photo of the Magna to Mum and said to Tess and Dno, Grammy will say “I loved that car”. Yep that‘s what we got back ?. My pick for the day was an old International commercial van that has done the Bash about 10 times. Dno’s pick was the 57 Corvette and Tess the army jeep. We also enjoyed looking at number 1 LJ GTR Torana. Used in the original advertising and much more. 
Caught up with some mates and organised a bed for the night and then went to check out the museum. Wowers there was some cars and bikes in there 2! Lots of Holden’s from Efijy, Hurricane, GTR sports coup, some of the prototypes through to the Holden overhead assembly plant with the autographed last Holden. Lots of garagmobillia, car driving computer games through the generations and even a Telecom phone that was used at festivals and you could call on it. That one was for Jim as he was a Telecom technician. And a 1 to 1 scale Lego car. By the time we got around the museum the place was deserted and the kombi was all alone as everyone has left by early afternoon. 
We made our way back to mates for the night at Bridgewater and the kombi felt at home with a spot in the shed next to a HJ Holden. 
   
   
   
   
   

[Quombi]

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[Oldman]

Looks like an awesome trip ! 

[Quombi]

Dno decided to do the tappets and change the plugs on the bus and tune the carbi before our week driving around the peninsula. 
We had been given a metal plaque for completing the Bay to Birdwood event. Dno had it propped up on the front of the bus against the air vent. I took it out to show cousin Russ and when i put it back it slipped in like posting a letter and went to join all the other small items been there since 1961! Russ was determined to get it out so armed with tape on a small screwdriver, and me giving instructions from the outside, he got it first go…… until it hit the windows and dropped straight back in. We got it after a few more turns and straight into the bag till we get home! 
After resting up Dno’s KCK (kombi clutch knee, remember it is 1961 motering) for a day we then heading down the coast for a look about. Found some cool art along the beach front and a nice brunch.  The bus deciding to do the random not starting thing again on us but after a tweak of the connect to the starter motor we were on our way.  Wind was picking up so we headed back inland, doing a U-ey at a strawberry farm before arriving at friends at Blakiston. Out for tea to the local Prancing Pony brewery where we got caught up in the pub quiz and while coming 2nd last we did win a jug of beer for a bonus round. Happy days!