Duck Report 2013
Well, the Duck has been run and won for this year. If you weren’t there, you missed an enjoyable tour north to Gloucester over some very scenic roads.
In the absence of Ron and Jim Pope and Peter Meddows, Ron Fraser and David Brown stepped in to the breach and organised this year’s event.
It comprised of straightforward route charting for the novices and some navigation for the others.
A very good field of 19 enthusiastic competitors entered and turned up at Fighter World at Williamtown for a hearty breakfast before the execution, of the event that is.
After the paperwork was completed with the smiling Karen Piggott and her helpers, some explanations came from Ron and David about what was expected from us.
Have fun!
The scrutineering was carried out under the meticulous eyes of Stan Nicole and Geoff Thomas, and then it was all go!
We departed out of Fighter World, heading north to the MG grounds at Ringwood for a quick blip around a pegged out course up and down the hill around flags and old car tyres. This section was scrutinised by Paul Meddows who awarded points subjectively according to the driving skills demonstrated over the slippery course.
From the MG land we headed towards Clarencetown being careful to keep east of the Williams River, then east to the Buckets way and back to the Pacific Highway, through Karuah then north through the Branch over roads I’ve never seen before, some tar and the rest good gravel surface. Once on the old highway we turned right to head east to Bulahdelah for what Ron described as a wee break. There was the ever smiling Karen (how did she get up here before us??) manning (womaning?) a route check. A quick cup of coffee and back to the road. North through Markwell and Waukivory to the lunch break at Gloucester.
The roads were most enjoyable and quite interesting, considering they had just been graded by the council. Very smooth with a thin layer of ball bearings on top! A lot of fun was had¦ as much as you wanted!
From the meal break, we headed south to Ward’s River and a loop around the North Coast Railway over Washpool Bridge and across towards Dungog. From there we headed towards the finish at Seaham over mainly sealed roads via Glen William and Clarencetown.
We were greeted at the finish by the triumphant directors. Nobody recorded all the route check boards!
The boards had been hiding from us which is a good lesson to be very observant while driving!
Overall it would seem all participants had an enjoyable day out with their offsiders driving their cars the way they enjoy the most. That is what our events are all about, just having fun in cars.