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A “Mulligan”, in golf, is a term used where a player is allowed to replay a poor shot. Frowned on by the purists, but amongst friends is often acceptable. Well, whatever a Mulligan is in golf, in the world of Packardians it’s now used, in conjunction with the word Run, to describe an almost perfect Packard June long weekend run to Eden in southern NSW.

Why? Well John and Margaret Mulligan had missed the Happy Wheels 2015 Packard National Rally at Phillip Island, because octogenarian John, with the help of his nonagenarian mate, was sailing a boat from Tasmania to Victoria at that time of the rally! Because they weren’t at Phillip Island John and Margaret were feeling left out and wanted to re-establish Packard contact sooner rather than later.  To this end a run to Eden was proposed, a sort of Border Run although Border Runs are not normally run in National Rally years. Eden was also not too far for John and Margaret, on the NSW side of the NSW/VIC border, a mere 260kms. All that was required was a firm commitment for, I think, a minimum of 12 motel rooms and the Mulligans would do the rest. To this end Margaret Clarkson, NSW Events Director, was co-opted and during the course of Phillip Island Margaret achieved the numbers fairly easily.

Day 1 I had “lobbied”, if that’s the word for it, for a convoy mainly to accommodate Sydney based Packardians which resuled in Kath and myself and passenger Noel Shorter in the ’41 120 Coupe, Jeff and Margaret Clarkson in their ’52 200 Deluxe Sedan, Chris Ryan and friend Brett in Chris’s ’54 Clipper Super Coupe together with Ed and Margaret Kelly and Geoff Chessell in moderns being the convoy participants. We were also met at our Convoy start point of Macca’s at Fairy Meadow, as suggested by David McCredie. We also learned at Macca’s that David McCredie and Veronique Biagi were making their second start to the run. They’d originally set out about 6:00am in the ’29 Roadster but it broke a fan blade about an hour or so into their journey. They’d returned home, unloaded the Roadster and loaded up the ’29 7 Passenger Sedan instead and set off again about 9:00am. Must be good to have a backup Packard in the garage and at the ready!
From Fairy Meadow our Convoy headed to Ulladulla and PACA member Neville Storey. Neville has a ’34 1100 Sedan and I knew he had some Graham’s and Graham-Page’s and he’d agreed we could see them on our journey south. At Milton, about 10 minutes north of Ulladulla, I phoned ahead only to be told Neville was in Sydney!  Bit of a shock, but I was also told through the bad reception to come on over. Am I glad we did! Not just A Packard and a few Graham’s and Graham-Page’s but lots more! Must have been in the vicinity of 30+ cars and trucks to see and a number of cars in various stages of restoration. Plus, also there to meet us were members of the Milton Ulladulla Vintage & Classic Car Club complete with their cars(about 6 of them), including a participant in the 1995(I think) National Packard Rally! Apparently Jim Casey and his ’53 Buick Hardtop were invited along, being the only non-Packard as an official Rally Entrant! Jim had his copy of the Rally Book with him and asked about a number of the participants shown in the book as to whether they were on the run to Eden. Unfortunately they weren’t.  Because of time constraints, I’d budgeted ½ an hour but it was so good we stayed an hour before heading off again! And when I rang Neville today, to thank him for our time at Ulladulla, was surprised to learn I was speaking to him in San Francisco!

After Ulladulla next stop was Batemans Bay for lunch and refuelling. Chris said he ‘d had a good seafood lunch there so we followed him. Round and around and around and around till we got the picture and most of us headed to a pub and had lunch there while Chris and Brett eventually did find and have a seafood lunch.  We had also expected to meet up with Mat Rattray at Batemans Bay, but he’d called earlier saying he would now meet us at Eden.

Arriving at the Twofold Bay Motor Inn at  Eden, in the early evening guided by Packard headtlights, a practice generally not to be recommended,  found Peter and Ann Toet, ’38 Twelve Limousine, Wade & Gina Hawker, ’37 Super 8 Club Sedan and Barry & Pam Brown ’61 Ford Falson Sedan already there as well as the Victorians and South Australians. The Vic’s were Fred and am Dosser, ’54 Clipper, John & Bernice Payne, ’56 Patrician, Noel & Heather Jenner ’39 120 Sedan(which was Noel Shorters first Packard many, many years ago!), Grover and Diane Hurle, ’48 Sedan as well our hosts John & Margaret Mulligan with their ’37 120 Sedan. Learned that John and Margaret had experienced Overdrive problems on their trip and that Allen & Irene Laverick experienced problems with their ’35 Sedan and made the trip in a modern car. The South Aussies being Rob & Margaret Trembath in a modern and, if I’ve missed mentioning anyone, my apologies. Dinner that evening was at The Eden Fishermans Recreation Club directly over the road from the Motel, a great set-up. Later, at the Fishermans Club, we were joined by Mat Rattray, who’d driven his ’55 Caribbean and David & Veronique when they arrived in the ’29 Sedan.

 

Special thanks to Mal Harris for the report and images of this run.

 

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