Greetings from Sunny Queensland.

Greetings from Sunny Queensland,

Unfortunately, not a huge amount of “Cobra “ news to report at this time of year.

As we reach the end of the year, and the temperature rises, the club’s activities tend to slow down a tad.

As much as many people, ( i.e. NOT Cobra people…..i.e. NORMAL people )..seem to think that cruising in an open top car is best done in the blazing bright warm summer sunshine, whilst feeling the wind through the hair and all that malarky.

The truth is, the combination of an open top car, blazing hot Queensland sun, not much protective hair ( Unless you count back hair ?? ), and furnace like hot wind  tends to kill you rather than invigorate you !!

Either that , or every 30 years or so, the rain comes and stays for an indefinite period.
That’s THIS year it seems.

In any case, we did manage to come out of our huts for a couple of get togethers on which I can report.

The Christmas party this year, was an overnight stay at Jupiters Casino, at the beautiful Gold Coast, and included us all attending the fabulous “Show” , ZINGARA in their main showroom.

Lovely accommodation, pre dinner drinks, getting to dress up ( That’s what I call it when I have to wear shoes ! ), and a fantastic collection of very nice people made for a top weekend.

Many of the chaps thought we would be needing an escape plan, just in case we found the show was boring our tits off, and thought we might have to adjourn to a bar somewhere in the casino.

MY escape plan would be very simple, being, that if the show was giving me the poops, I would just get up, and walk out, go to a bar/black jack table or whatever and catch up to everyone else after the show.

My  “Main squeeze” Joanne, fully supported this idea, because it appears that she would rather ,
( a )have a spare seat next to her on which she could dump her handbag etc., and

(b) NOT have to put up with me making smart arse remarks about the show, while she was trying to enjoy it.

However, as it turned out , we had fantastic front row seating, ( All 72 of us )….Thanks to the beautiful Lina Roth , and the show was brilliant.
An excellent idea, and overall, a great Christmas party/ weekend.

Christmas Parties, of course, lead us to Christmas, and although not much was happening on the club side of things, with all of the racing etc., finished for the year, there was plenty to be done at home.

We had a fairly quiet one, and enjoyed the change of weather.

The usual stinking hot Christmas day, drinking warm beer, and trying to cool down, was replaced with copious amounts of cold beer, and keeping out of the cyclonic rain and wind.

Now , for some reason known only to myself, ( Because the aforementioned red-head Joanne thought I was an idiot for doing this )….. I had decided that because I had the offer of fresh banana prawns from the Gulf of Carpentaria, at the right price, I would need 15 kilograms of these little critters for Christmas.

Take it from me….NOBODY needs FIFTEEN kilos of prawns.

They were beautiful, and a big hit with everyone, but I managed to only go through 9 kilos, and that was after making sure that egg one( Michael ) ,and Egg two ( Chris ), ate incessantly, and certainly nothing was to pass their lips that didn’t have some prawn included.

“ No filling up on bread, or drinking water “, I decreed,  being the complete opposite of what I have been begging them to do now for almost 20 years, hoping to keep the bankruptcy at bay, while they tried to eat anything and everything within arms reach.

When you consider that these lads have now developed arms like lowland gorillas, the expression “everything within arms reach” can take in quite a bit of territory.

Christmas came and went , followed by a reasonably uneventful New Year.

I had one of my Pommy mates that I used to live with in England, and who now lives in Sydney, finally agree to bring his family up to the  “Beautiful Gold Coast” for the week after Christmas, so that his kids, and his wife and himself could enjoy the golden beaches and beautiful sunshine.

What they got was another week of rain going sideways, howling wind, too much time being spent indoors in a Motel room, with two young kids announcing “I’m Bored” every two minutes.

Lucky there was enough cold beer to go around, and of course MORE prawns.

Next we had the first Cobra breakfast meeting for the new year.

A goodly number ( about 100 ) of keen starters enjoying a bit of sunshine after a couple of wet weeks.
After breakfast, those who felt like a drive in the heat, followed me up to my favourite place on the coast.

The spectacular waterfalls up in the mountains of Springbrook.

They had received over ONE METRE of rain in just the previous week, so the drive was a bit slower than normal, and we had to crawl over a couple of small bridges with water still flowing over them rather than under them.

 Once we arrived ,I asked any of them if they had ever been there before, and to my surprise they were all “Springbrook Waterfall Virgins”.

I told them that I considered this area to be the most beautiful on the coast, so beautiful in fact, that if I was ever ( and I’m sure it will happen ONE day ), to shuffle of my mortal coil, and leave the land of the living, that Joanne has been told that this is where I’d like my ashes scattered….i.e. Over the waterfall.

Taking in this profound announcement for a second, the solemness of the moment was shattered, when my lovely bride injected……”Well you’ll never pull a bigger crowd than what’s here…lets do it now….who’s got some matches ?? !! “

I said I’d be in it….as long as she comes with me !!

Ahh….the love !

In mid January a number of us joined up with the GT40 guys, and went for a nice run up to Bribie Island.

The father of one of our club members , Steve Wilson, is right into the hand building and running of the mini steam trains, and they all get together once every so often to show off their achievements.
A good run, and great to see.
We followed this with a few drinks, and lunch at the big Bribie R.S.L.

Mind you, we were supposed to be having lunch at the ocean front pub, but they followed me again, and the piss poor directions someone gave me, resulted in us having lunch at the R.S.L. about 200 meters from where we’d already been watching the trains etc.

We have plenty of club events on the way, including a lot of motor racing for those interested, so I should have more Club News next time, and less of what goes on around this mad house.

Time to send this report away ( Late as usual) and get some of my REAL work done.
Until next time,

Safe Driving,

Regards,

Warren Boylan,
Pres.