Great turnout
Why would a Tauranga girl now living in East Auckland drive out to West Auckland? Only for one of the highlights of the Auckland Mercedes Benz Club calendar, the annual Top Down Tour.
Always a laugh at driver briefing
This is one of the outings that I get to drive as the husband is a much better navigator than I am. The drive started with him connecting up the radar detector. Don’t quite know why. I really wasn’t trying to keep up with the blue car. It was then a quick drive over to Te Atatu South and with a little bit of help from the GPS down to Parrs Park to meet up with the rest of the convertibles, most with the roof down and some tin tops. An excellent turn out of nineteen cars sat in the sunshine waiting for the briefing.
Leader of the pack
Once more Greg and Barbs had come up with the ultimate route through West Auckland, up to Muriwai, over to Kumeu, past Riverhead, finishing in Coatesville. The roads were an amazing mixture of corners to race around, straights to put the foot down and scenery to admire. Well done to Keith and Kay in keeping up with me when I had my middle age girl racer moments. Of course not running over the dead possums and pukekos made my navigator very happy.
The questions were the next challenge. Counting “bugs” and agreeing with the outcome is challenging for any partnership. It was cool to learn the playground at Parrs Park where we had to find the bugs was built by our very own Club President Harald Decker and his company Decker Developments. Daryl and I were very pleased that there was no dreaded “how many words can you make from this word” question and also for finally spotting the house in the photo. The first time in three years we have achieved this. Go us.
Mercs at Muriwai
I think we kept the Muriwai locals entertained with the long queue of Mercedes all looking for the falling man sign.
Riverhead is a regular stopping point for us but we most certainly didn’t know about the mills. The little walk for that information was also an excellent spot to stretch the legs, let off some steam and for everyone to catch up.
Fernielea Cafe was a lovely place to finish, with delicious food, cold wine and good conversation. On to the place-getters. Well done Wendy and Ewold for their first place, although I have it on good authority he was not the perfect navigator. And well done to my navigator and amazing husband for answering the questions, not getting us lost and staying calm, to give us our first ever 2nd place. We were delighted. I do find it interesting that in both the 1st and 2nd placings the ladies were driving and the men giving directions. Best way for a calm tensionless car.
Thanks to Barbara and Greg for an amazing day, all your effort, and coming up with the perfect route.
Janine Jeffery
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