Not much to this one really, just a handful of this-was-the-process photos to properly flesh out yesterday's Instagram post:
Dusted off the AW11 this weekend for a blast through eastern VIC and up the NSW South Coast. Perfect weather (clear skies and 20-odd-degree temps.. in what's *supposedly* the middle of bloody winter!) has meant sans-sunroof AW11ing, while the car put today's ~900km under its belt with ease. For an old Toyota that's literally driven to-the-moon and then some, it's a drop in the ocean; but the weird and wonderful rattles do their best to remind me that those doors (will) properly fall off ONE day..
Basically, the plan for this weekend was to race up to the NSW South East Coast.
From Melbourne there's two main ways I'd go about this: up the Hume, veering off east toward Canberra, and continuing over to Batemans Bay; or down and all the way across Victoria, arriving at the same point from the south via Eden and Merimbula.
Despite clocking up well over 100,000km in the AW11 over the last decade-plus, I had never driven it across to the far eastern side of the state. Hell, I'd never driven anything over that far (honestly, there's not a lot there..), and it wasn't much of a go-to for family holidays as a kid..!
So hell, lets.
Pulled the AW11 out of storage bright-and-early Saturday morning; scrubbed it up thoroughly, loaded 'er up, and headed off even-brighter-and-earlier (6am sharp!) Sunday.
As mentioned above, that oddly warm weather meant it was sunroof-out from the get go - just icing on an impromptu cake really! Yep, all went very bloody well.
So.. yeah.. now for that 'Australia's South East Coast from through the windscreen of an old Toyota' part: a so-so set of photos taken magically/automatically/whatever-ly (please just use your imagination..) through the MR2's windows as it mosey'd up the coast. From neon pass-scanners in the dark on the Eastlink, sunrise on the Princess, clear skies through Bega, and finishing with a mid-arvo arrival in a side-street just south of Moruya:
..and finally at the location that kicked off this post. Don't mind the hundreds of kays of crumbs in the footwell - I tried to keep it neat!
"but.. where's the brake dust..?!" Yeah, okay.. I may've stopped along the way for another cheeky rinse. A sunny day and an empty carwash? I'm not not going to stop am I?!
...aaaand back to the start with a view from a different camera. Yep.
Next up? The trip back...