Hunter Goes to Joadja

09 June 2015 / Josh Fitzgerald

Early on a very frosty Saturday morning, 9 Hunter members in 5 MX-5s set off from Edgeworth McDonalds bound for Joadja Winery at Berrima for the clubs annual charity fundraiser.

While the Hunter Chapter had already held its fundraising event, the charity lunch was conveniently held the day before a club track day at Wakefield Park, so members attending the track day decided to drop in for lunch on the way to Goulburn. Other Hunter members used it as an excuse to come along for another social day out driving with the club (not that you need an excuse to drive an MX-5!).

Being a very early start, we took the direct route down the M1. After navigating through the chaos that is Sydney's motorways we detoured off the Hume Highway at Narellan to shake off the tunnel vision with a nice twisty road through Razorback before arriving at Picton to meet up with the Sydney and RPM chapters.

After a much needed coffee break a very large group of MX-5s made our way to our lunch destination at Joadja Winery. With such a large group it was difficult to keep in touch and after taking a wrong turn ended up making our own way to Joadja. Conveniently we arrived a few minutes before the main group so grabbed prime parking spots in the field.

Arriving at the winery we were certain the mercury had dipped into single digits so quickly found the winery's fireplace to warm up by while sampling some of the beautiful wines, before enjoying a lovely wood fired pizza for lunch. Shortly after, the obligatory game of heads and tails was held, followed by the raffling off of wine and gift baskets and then an auction with all the proceeds to be donated to CareFlight, a very worthy cause.

With those heading home making their own way, the rest of us attending Wakefield headed off to Goulburn to continue the social events including a pre-track dinner that night with around about 50 other club members.