Bay to Birdwood – Day 0 – Sydney to Bathurst
Our trip to Adelaide for the Bay to Birdwood starts tomorrow morning in Bathurst. We learned very quickly the first year that starting out from Sydney is a bad idea. The goal of day zero is for everyone to make their own way to the start point the evening before.
The last few years I’ve had to work on the day, so have arrived very late in the evening. This year I left early at around 11AM. I was fresh from having my air-conditioning gassed up and ready to set out. My starting point odometer was 118,328km. We had already collected our merchandise a few weeks before, so I already had my magnets on the side of the car, ready to go.
I’m actually not using my factory odometer. The speedo cable must have kinked when the instrument cluster was re-installed in my car. It only lasted about 4km driving it home. Taking out the cluster when I arrived home, the inner metal rod is no longer there. Instead, I had Claud AI build me a mobile app to be my makeshift speedometer and odometer on my old phone. I now have two phone holders, one for navigation and one for speed and distance. The second phone does not have a SIM installed but that is not necessary for GPS. When I return and get another speedometer cable, I will have to adjust the milage to make sure it is correct. So far it is working quite well!
While the forecast is better for tomorrow, it was fairly wet leaving Sydney. I also encountered thick fog on the way up the Blue Mountains. Traffic was fairly heavy due to the continued closure of Victoria Pass. However, despite all that the W116 was smooth and comfortable, and my newly repaired air-conditioning kept the windows clear. I took my time for the drive and arrived a bit before 3.
We are staying at the Knickerbocker Hotel, a pub in central Bathurst. Our group started arriving throughout the evening and we had dinner at the pub where they had quite a good chicken schnitzel special. All the cars made it without too much incident, although the 1985 280CE wasn’t running all that well and even managed to backfire on the way up. The theory is that the air slide is not closing properly. We’ll see if a good run sorts this out.
The Corvette also arrived without issue, but it has an achillies heel, in that the tyres are an almost impossible size to get in Australia and the spare is very old. The Mercedes with 14″ wheels (my 450SE, both 280CEs and the 280SL) can all share spares at a pinch. Still, we’ve not had any tyre issues before, and many punctures can be repaired.
In any case, everyone is here, and we are all ready to start our trip tomorrow. I drove 224km, including to go and get the car re-gassed.
