Tassie Trip – Day 1

This is a shot of the group leaving the shell on the m5 towards Melbourne. Chris and Cam are in Chris’ red MKVI GTI. Jason’s alone in his MKIV GTI and Nath’s alone too in his R36 sedan.

Day 1 we got up ridiculously early. Jason met us at the beach and we started our drive out to the Shell/McDonalds at Suttons Forrest. To our surprise the sat nav system in Christina’s car was pretty damn accurate and despite the distance and lack of traffic we got there at 6.30AM on the dot.

In this photo Jason’s washing his car with multi-coloured car foam (very cool!).

Our sat nav systems forced us onto Sydney Road once we got into Melbourne city, the road was a 40 zone and there was heaps of traffic. Due to the long drive, tired eyes and traffic the boys got a little delirious and much walkie talkie laugther was had (we were all dialed into channel 33). We stopped off to wash our cars before meeting up with the Melbourne Crew.

Some of the VWGolf.net.au Melbourne guys + JDMST/Jtype guys met us at the infamous garage cafe where you’re welcome to park your car inside the venue (a cool concept which I wish existed in Sydney).

We had a meal (they serve up Indonesian food) which went down a treat. Despite being tired we were eneergised by meeting some new faces as well as catching up with the old. Cool guys, cool city.

One of the boys brought down his newly finished BMX which was loaded with NOS (new old stock) parts. Gotta love the fusion. Cars, bikes, all in!

We could have spent heaps more time with the Melbourne guys but we had to get going to load our cars up on the Spirit Of Tasmania.

It was a long wait getting the cars on, but it was exciting too and since we had walkie talkies we managed to make time fly faster by cracking silly jokes. It was at this point tht I decided to take 2 travel calm tablets “just in case”.

Into the boat we go.

SUGA’s final parking spot.

VW represent! Chris and Cam were parked just a few cars behind us.

The travel calm tablets I took absolutely wasted me. We were having a few drinks at the bar and they made me feel even worse. Christina and I both passed out early before anyone else. The boat rocked pretty hard at times in the night, amazing considering how massive the Spirit is.