This month we travelled to Trafalgar Victoria with the ACT Club for the Official Opening of the Trafalgar Holden Museum.

Dick and Alice Thomas pushed off early and spent the day exploring the way to Canberra. Near Goulburn they caught up to, and pasted, Rusty and Roslyn Towers & Ted and Rhonda Lowe who were slowly doing the Hume to Wodonga.

The rest of us: Geoff and Margaret Saul; Dave Baker and Richard Roughledge; Geoff Klimpsch and John Rappinete and Richard Thomas set off from Casula at 1.00pm and cruised to near Goulburn where Richard’s Car acquired a flat tyre. After Dave and Richard helped him get going again, RET detoured into Goulburn to get a new tube and cruised onto Canberra with his parents.

The rest of us stopped off at Wakefield Park for a bit of racecar practice, before getting to our Canberra Motel via Bungendore. After a short break we did a bit of car sharing and headed to Weston (via city centre) for Dinner with our ACT collegues.

Those of us staying in Canberra made our way to Old Parliament House to meet up with David Ridge, Graham and Kathy Pryce for the run to Maffra. Col Tierney had to work for a couple of Hours and he met up with us at Sale.

It was a great drive to Maffra via Cooma, Bombala, Cann River, Orbost and Lakes Entrance was quite exciting with lots of changing road & weather conditions. Most of us lunched at Orbost, which is a pretty town

We were met at the Maffra Car Museum by Victorian Member David Millar, and spent an hour or so there before cruising into Sale and our Motels.

The Lowe’s and Tower’s meanwhile had a spectacular run along the upper Murray toward Jingellic, and then the Mitta Mitta River and over the Great Diving Range through Omeo to Orbost and Sale

We all met up and had dinner at the Greyhound Club with Dave Millar

Our proposed convoy to Trafalgar evaporated, when David Millar and other locals arrived early at our assembly point for Trafalgar and some of us elected to join their convoy.

The weather was perfect and the bigger convoy of about 20 cars had a smart drive for about an hour to Trafalgar. The locals brought us in to the Museum carpark and we all got a good spot right opposite the Trafalgar Museum entry. Shortly thereafter some 15-20 more Victorian FE-FC Club Cars arrived from Melbourne.

The Museum was fresh and ticked all the boxes, so all had a good time (although it took quite a while for many members to actually get into the Museum and there were many classic cars outside).

We assembled for lunch over the road/railway, and the local Bricker/Brac stores did a brisk trade.

We learnt that Holden made many things other than Holden Cars, from ‘WW1 military kit’ to ‘Frigidaire Home Appliances’.

Mid-afternoon some cars went back to Melbourne, with a few Victorian FE-FC driving back to Sale with us for dinner at the Sporting Legends Club.

Everyone had a pleasant evening and we parted company about 10pm, giving those driving back to Melbourne not too late a night.

Geoff Klimpsch & John Rappinete left early to drive home, and were overtaken by David Ridge, Graham and Kathy Pryce & Col Tierney at Lakes Entrance.
We understand that everyone else had made their way home by Monday evening.

The Trafalgar Museum is a new ‘must see’, and we wish Dennis and the team a prosperous venture, that looks like it will always have something new for us to look at whenever we get to Victoria and Gippsland.

It was so good catching up with the ACT and Victorian members, with the Bombala / Cann River Road & the freshly bitumened Omeo Roads were a bonus for those doing the drive.

A couple of car facts for the trip: I travelled 2238km; average fuel consumption 10.18 lit/100km or 27.75mpg.

Geoff Klimpsch