Longreach Trip – Day 0 – Sydney to Maitland

Our trip to Longreach in classic cars starts tomorrow morning.  One of the things we learned in the first of these trips is that it is a bad idea to try and start out from Sydney in the morning.  I would be doubly worse on the first day of school holidays.   Therefore, the first leg of the trip starts from Maitland.

This means there is a Day 0 where everyone makes their own way to the starting point and stays overnight.   Most of the group had a full work day, so most people arrived between 7:30 and 8:30pm into Maitland.

In the spirit of trying to avoid motorways for this entire trip, I met up with a few of the guys in Berowra at around 5:15pm and we took the scenic way up towards Maitland.   This involved taking the Old Pacific Highway, Peats Ridge Road, George Downes Road and Wollombi road through the national park up towards the Hunter.    In a sense it was a lot like a night drive up the old Pacific Highway.

This is a much better way to get to Maitand than the boring M1 motorway.

I started the drive with 342,537km on the odometer of my 560SEL.   By the end of our first leg we had covered a little under 200km.    We met up with most of the rest of the group in Maitland.   This was an opportunity to get our trip merch.   We’ve all got magnets for our cars, and I’ve also got a hat, a poster and two polo shirts.   I think its a bit of fun and provides some souvenirs from the trip.

I went with #117.  For this trip, I planned to take my 560SEL.  However, If I hadn’t been able to get the coolant leak fixed before the trip I would have taken a different car, which also has a M117 engine.

We then met at the local club for dinner.   Tomorrow morning is a very early start due to having to re-route the trip around a landslide on Thunderbolts way.