Words by Daniel.
The 2021 Motafrenz Magical Mystery tour started out like a Mercedes Benz owners club event with the first two cars being Mercedes, followed by an immaculate looking HZ Holden then another two Mercedes Benz’s.
Fortunately, a variety of other cars added to the mix with a Mini convertible, a Bentley, another Mercedes, a Discovery and a Ford Ranger to top it off.
We had a great mix of members and non-members, and hopefully a few that will be joining us on future events as well.
While numbers were down with only ten cars, that seems to be the case across quite a few Midsumma events so far this year. With the cold weather already here people are going into hibernation, and the chance of rain probably turned a few people off.
The route this year took us from Como Park up to the Chandler Highway to get onto the Eastern Freeway, then up through Donvale, Warrandyte, Kangaroo Ground, Yarra Glen and Healesville before out finishing point at Badgers Weir Picnic Area.
With the rally being in winter and with a chance of rain, we were seeking a finish line that had some covered picnic tables. It was also well away from any main roads, so probably not a place too many would have been to before.
Warrandyte gave everyone a chance to get out and stretch their legs and proved the location of two of the most challenging questions. In a nod to pop culture rather than any signs in Warrandyte we asked, ‘Where would you go for a mug of Jarrah’? Two teams managed to get the Kath and Kim reference, but most didn’t. The other challenging question was counting car parks on a map. There was no grid and it was hand drawn, making it quite difficult to count each carpark only once.
Many of the routes had been included in mystery tours of the past, but we tried to vary the locations of questions a little bit, and kept the questions different to past mystery tours. As with every other year, people loved the opportunity to get out of Melbourne go for a drive, and be forced to pay attention to the scenery. With the recent rain area also looked a bit different to how it usually does in summer.
In the end Doug and Boyd from the Candy Stars narrowly nudged out team Ruby to take first prize. The M&N’s and HZ Holden came last, but the gap between first and last was only six points, with three other teams only one point off coming last.
As usual we ran a raffle with Gordon taking the lead to run an extremely successful raffle given the small number of attendees. The raffle included the usual useful trinkets, as well as a 1959 and 1963 editions of Wheels Magazines.
Gordon was called upon to draw the first ticket out of the container, and dutifully pulled out his own ticket. Not persuaded by the magazines, wine, esky or Kodak jigsaw puzzles, Gordon claimed conflict of interest and drew another ticket out to take first prize.
We all had a great day, and was made much easier thanks to the help from Gordon, Paul and Anthony in running the day. Fortunately, the rain held off until after we’d all packed our cars and were back in Melbourne.
