Keeping up the tradition from last year, the Victorian and South Australian Corvette Clubs met up again for a weekend of Corvettes, food & fun. It was the second running of “Meet the Vics” in the new era. This event was run quite a few years ago but faded away until revived in 2021 after the third Nationals cancellation had people looking for a smaller replacement event.
Last year it was Mildura, and this year it was Mount Gambier that was chosen as the venue. This year the Vics outnumbered the South Aussies partly due to the inclusion of another Victorian Club – Corvettes of Geelong. This meant 5 different Corvette Clubs were represented, which must surely be a record number of clubs getting together outside the Nationals.
After everyone had parked their cars at the motel, hung up their clothes and wandered around meeting both old and new friends, thoughts turned to the evening’s activities.
Right on time, our weekend bus rolled in and gradually all the eager crew found their way on board. After a short run down to Sorrentos at the centre of town, the evening’s festivities began.
Plenty of food, drinks and laughter followed and the weekend had begun. Most people decided to ease into the weekend with a thought to the big day coming up on Saturday, so the night ended relatively early. It must be admitted there were a few small parties in the rooms – but it wouldn’t be a Corvette weekend away without a few ‘stayers’ involved.
It was into the bus again on Saturday morning with our excellent bus driver, Don. After an hour or so heading north up the Riddoch Highway, we took the turnoff to visit the historic Coonawarra Siding. After the obligatory group photo (see front page), Don headed to the Brands Laira Winery where we did a little tasting before all sitting down for a delicious lunch.
We then split up into three groups. The first returned to the local town of Penola for some exploring, while the other two groups headed for the Wynns and the DiGiorgio Wineries respectively. A group of wine connoisseurs amongst us took the Premium Wynns Tasting and were extremely impressed with the experience.
A very happy group boarded the bus once more for the return home.
On Saturday night it was all-aboard Don’s bus again, and off we went to the South Eastern Hotel. We had our own outdoor pop-up room which we filled with our Corvette enthusiasts.
It was good to see everyone in such good shape after their day out, especially those who took their wine tasting seriously.
It is also worth noting that some appeared to get a ‘second wind’ after getting back to the motel – enough said!
On Sunday morning it was time to forget Don’s bus and take the Vettes out for a run.
First stop was the Umpherston Sinkhole where we parked the cars and took a walk down into the gardens.
Then it was a good run all the way south to Port MacDonnell where we visited Feast’s Classic Car Collection & Memorabilia. This is a great visit with many interesting cars and lots of other collections as well. If you had the time I’m sure you could spend 3 or 4 hours looking around.
From the Feast’s Museumwe headed back towards Mount Gambier and the famous Blue Lake. We did some cruising around the Lake, stopping at some strategic points for photos of the group and our cars.
It was then on to our BBQ location at the Hastings Cunningham Reserve where the Mount Gambier Lions Club had set up a BBQ for us. As with the rest of the weekend, the weather was very kind to us and we had quite a sunny afternoon for the BBQ – very unusual for this time of year at Mount
On Sunday night we all boarded Don’s bus for the last time for the farewell Dinner. This was held at the Café Belgiorno Italian restaurant where we all thought about our excellent weekend and vowed to do it all again next year.
Several awards were given out for the weekend’s best “stuff-ups”, but I won’t go into that in order to protect the innocent!
So it was goodbye to Mount Gambier and Meet the Vics 2022. Where will it be next year?
