Geraldine in April

April 14 2012

by Bev Clifton

Saturday the 14th of April dawned cloudless and sunny, perfect for the P76 outing to Geraldine, a small rural town about 130k south of Christchurch. Eleven members and 5 P76's meet at the Cookie Time factory in Templeton at 10.15 a.m. - what a display

Bitter Apricot was the prevailing colour with Paul and Barbara Faulkner all the way from Hanmer Springs in their pristine BA Super with black vinyl roof. This car was recently purchased from its original owner with just 53,000 k's on the clock! Barbara confided in me that the car is Paul's pride and joy and no wonder, it is a truly mouth watering example.

Left to Right- BA D Buchanan, BA D Faulkner, HOTO D Blowers and BA S McKenzie

The convoy moved onto Ashburton to be joined by Roy and Paula Buchanan from Methven, adding to the BA convoy, another immaculate car presented by our friendly recent additions to the Southern Group. Onto Geraldine, 60k inland from Ashburton, a beautiful little town offering views of the snow capped Southern Alps, rich autumn foliage and lush green pastures. What a change irrigation has made to the area where dairying has taken over the once predominant sheep/cropping country. A paddock of grazing sheep now a rarity!

Upon arrival we filled ourselves and then took a walk around this fascinating little town now well catering to the tourist trade. Barker's, an old established fruit and produce processing company was open and busy selling jams, pickles and fruit smoothies. Some of the goodies the Clifton - Moggs will be enjoying for some time. Opposite Barkers the Bullrush Chocolate shop - awesome stuff!

Onto our comfortable accommodation at Motel Adooran complete with swimming pool which still awaits P76 patronage. The occupants of a PMAG P76 check in and are allocated a unit and are suitably horrified to find it in use when they walk in! Had someone walked in off the street and helped themselves to a room? The only clue was yet another BA P76 parked in their car park (Let us guess). Mystery solved when the two poor and homeless owners of the of the BA car sheepishly offered to decamp but another unit was found so all was well. The suggestion that the two cars should be swapped in lieu of the unit was not well received.

Sandy and George hosted drinks at 4.30 p.m., P76 talk being banned. Dinner was at 6.30 at The Village Inn, a very modern venue covering everyone's needs for big screens, TAB etc. Dinner took its time coming but was worth the wait and not too dear either. There's always plenty to chat about and to drink whilst waiting for dinner isn't there.

After dinner some retired while others watched the Crusaders win again.

Sunday dawned as Saturday had except for the cloud over a certain foundation members head, a single man appearing in dishevelled state, shirt hanging out, buttons awry, head pounding and causing some comment as he shied away from the glare of his BA P76! Who?

This is a wonderful collection run by a small group of volunteers and includes some very rare cars, many tractors, interesting trucks and extensive bulldozer collection with other bits too! See a selection below including part of an Austin 7 and Matchless motorcycle and the quite unusual Harley Davidson motorcycle and sidecar combination being used as a hearse. Don't miss this display if you're passing through Geraldine; in fact divert your journey.

From here we went to see the world's largest woollen jumper on display at a craft shop. What a whopper! A leisurely return home ended this event, no breakdowns were suffered by the P76's and it was so successful that members have started planning another trip, this time to Hanmer springs where Barbara and Paul have offered the use of their BBQ etc to host the visitors.

Click on the pictures below to enlarge