Well our Area Coordinator had said he was getting a bit tied up with his new business and he'd also said he thought folk needed shorter runs. So I made a few exploratory missions and PM'd about 40 folk asking if they'd join us on a reasonably short run around Auckland's west coast beaches - only about 160km instead of the usual 240k tankful... And lo and behold, on the day there were no less than 20 MR2's and a classic old Supra turned up at Westgate. Wicked!

Of course there were a number of comments about the dodgy looking weather - I reassured them it was only playing games with us... Sure enough the after-run postings speak of sunburn! =)

We headed to Muriwai first, taking a number of very pretty back roads through what's generally an 80kmh zone as it's infested with cyclists and is somewhat more inhabited than the picturesque scenery suggests. We managed to squeeze all the cars into the viewing area up on the cliffside at Muriwai (just!) and stopped for a bit of a suss - cameras came out and with a view like that, twenty 2's and a Supra lined up against that seascape, hey why not...?

Bubble, bubble toil and trouble...
The wicked witch of the west seemed to have got the better of Jason's red devil as it erupted into a great steaming hissy-fit and made like a cauldron.

OK so I'm exaggerating a wee bit, it wasn't quite that dramatic... But off down to the carpark we went for some emergency treatment from Doctors Brendan and Lucas, while the rest of us looked on like nervous Dads or something...

Good job I had some water and rags, Lucas had his tool box and Brendan had his bleeder hoses. And as I said to Jason, better it boiled at Muriwai than halfway back to the 'Naki..!

I'd expect the problem would've been due to an airlock - most common cause of which is, when you go to bleed the coolant, be sure to turn the engine on and then turn the heater to full hot, before draining and bleeding the system.

Heater control needs power to actuate eh - it caught me out once too..

All sorted again, off we went. Ever desirable of ensuring that safety margin in case the unexpected crops up, I'm never the less thinking I'd best add a wee bit of pace so those at the front don't get too bored, and I know I have my lovely wife bringing up the rear with the walkie talkie to save anyone getting lost... Tui... Marianne has the misfortune of finding some super slow someone slotting in front of her... Having stopped to ensure everyone's still in the train, I discover they are not. The usual cell phone calls go out and we make a detour to try to regather the wayward 2's. Turns out those wayward 2's are far too free spirited and we just can't find them.

So having looked far and wide we set off again this time for Bethels.

And there they are waiting for us. Like "where did you lot get to..?" they says... Hah! Cheek of it eh? =) It was jolly good to all tee up again I tell ya!

Lunch at the Bethels cafe (a caravan parked by the sand dunes) was typically scrummy, even if our arrival en masse did seem to stymie their output abilities a tad. Good excuse for folk to catch up though from what I saw.

Onward to Piha - but here I threw in a wee surprise. We took a one-lane super-twistie blind corners road that snakes its way down through the bush to Karekare, before heading on to Piha. Lucas echoed my sentiment of the previous weekend when he said something like "man, awesome! Imagine if we could close it and do time trials.." I still feel sincere regret for those unlucky few who never made it down that stretch (er, yes I did manage to lose a few cars a second time... Oops.)

Well we rendezvoused at Piha and ended up trapsing off to an ice cream store our resident surfin' bird (Marianne) knew about.

Thereafter some rather interesting discussions were had - and some fella who'd bought an MR2 and busted his car key discovered the club... and from there, well it was getting a lot later than expected, so we all just kinda drifted off home.

Onwards and downwards... to Raglan!
Mu ha ha!

Charlie
'88 AW11SC Hard-top Manual
'94 SW20 Turbo 500WHP