The start of the dampness of Autumn or Winter was probably not an ideal time to host a meeting of classic vehicles but when the options are limited to what becomes available at ideal locations, you do what you can.  As it was, the location at a camp inside the realms of the Pohangina Valley was only claimed due to a cancellation by another party and really we couldn’t have been happier at their choice to do so.  Months of organisation for the administrating bodies of oldschool.co.nz culminated in an event that could only be categorised under “success”.  I aided where I could/was useful in such things but my largest challenge was travelling over 1000kms simply to attend (then of course I had to get home)  A plane took care of the majority of that voyage for me and the rest was down purely to the kindness showed from my fellow automotive brethren.

Plane Boring.

I jumped on an Air New Zealand flight at circa 6am (having awoken at 5:20am) and was whisked up the country, directly into Wellington,  picked up at the airport by a lovely chap by the name of K-dribble, in a Citroen BX.  It was adorable.  I was then escorted into the city centre and left to wander about during the day, so I sent a txt message to a vegetable who found me with only the instructions “I’m in a Comic Book store”.  Together we moseyed about until the thought entered my mind that, whilst waiting to indulge in lunch with another friend, we would play some arcade games.  The step then became to find a damned arcade and wouldn’t you know it?  Wellington doesn’t fucking have one!  My friend, Broccoli, had rung directory who told us an address where there existed naught but space.  Gone.  Disappointed, we made our way to the meeting point for lunch and then dined with our Uncle at which point in time the disappointment ended.  After enjoying a lovely lunch and natter with UncleJake (who sadly would not be able to make it to the subsequent National event), we made our way to another comrade’s pad where I was introduced to the steed that would provide carriage for the journey northwards to Nationals.

323 Estate - styling by Bizzo.

We waited for Bistro to arrive back from attaining his registration tag thus making the estate legal for the drive and once he had done that,w e proceeded to break the car.  The car was started and left momentarily to warm up before I thought it would be amusing to give it a phat “choke port”, Broccoli pulled the choke and as expected it struggled along like a retarded sounding rotary for mere moments and the choke was slipped back in, at which point in time Bistro sat himself in the car and gave it a little gas which would have been fine were the exhaust system not filled with fuel enriched gases from too much choke, the car backfired and blew a hole in the rear muffler.  It was… hilarious, and so the journey and tribulations of Nationals had begun…

-Michael