We recently did a small trip to attend our first CMCA rally. It was at the old Bundaberg Showgrounds, close to the airport on the road into town from Childers. We thought we had better go to this one as we had tried to get to a couple of others but something always happened. Interesting experience, we are still undecided if it is our thing or not. Lot of people in one place, lots of organised things on if you want to join in, most of which we gave a miss.
It has always been our idea to see as much of a place as we can, once we are stopped somewhere for more than an overnighter, and around Bundaberg was no exception. People around here are quite friendly and there is a lot to see if you are prepared to do a bit of driving. We did trips to the wineries at Childers, down to the coast at Bargara and north as far as Avondale. We also did the Bundy Rum Distillery tour and now have our own framed Blendmaster certificates, for making our own blend of rum.
Before the rally started there was a huge dump of rain, but most of the site had fall so ground was pretty good. However towards the end of the rally it started raining a bit more seriously and many folk started to leave early. We decided to leave on the Monday afternoon, although it wrapped on the Tuesday morning. Put the legs down to take out our blocks and they went straight into the mud ! Eventually got them out with help and headed for the nearest road, unfortunately this meant the last bit was uphill. Drive wheels started loosing traction, it was a close thing as to whether we slid down the hill or made the tar road, fortunately the road won. There is a small village just outside Childers so we stopped there for the night, thinking we had missed the coastal rain, nope it bucketed down, found some leaks we did not know we had. Trip home the next morning was in some of the heaviest rain I have driven VP in, mostly around 80 kph and even at that speed, very few cars were trying to pass. Was not until the home side of Gympie that it started easing.
For us the highlight was probably meeting other Big Rig Clan members, as well as seeing how a major rally went. Almost 1,000 motorhomes attended, that’s a lot of people and a lot of sticks and staples machines. I somehow ended up with a framed aerial shot of the rally, difficult to get as it was so close to the airport, and the $500 it cost went to charity !
We will give some serious thought to Gunnedah,that is the next one in NSW, it should be a bit smaller but we are still waiting on a sale to be finalised before we make further plans